


The Shadow Prince

by destinies



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black, The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: (Also the Other Kind), Alternate Universe - Fusion, Bullying, Canon-Typical Violence, Characters AND Ships, Crossover, Curses, Drowning, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, F/M, It's Not a Love Triangle When One Point is Just Manipulating You, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Politics, Possession (but Like the Demonic Kind), Road Trips, Steampunk Vibes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2020-11-27 01:03:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 34,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20939732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destinies/pseuds/destinies
Summary: In the two hundred years since the Ravkan Civil War, Ravka has changed for better and worse. Airfleets determine military might. Wars are colder. Radicals murmur of the monarchy’s end. Through all of this, the Second Army endures, still a force to be reckoned with.When Jude Duarte is seven, her parents are branded traitors to the Ravkan throne and killed. Jude is taken by their murderer and raised in the Little Palace, even though she and her twin sister Taryn possess no Grisha power themselves. They grow up surrounded by beauty and enchantment and cruelty. No one embodies these traits better than Prince Cardan, the youngest and worst son of the royal family and Grisha to boot.Then a coup forces Jude and Cardan to flee Os Alta, and these adversaries must learn to work together or face the consequences. When they rouse the dormant evil awaiting them on the Shadow Fold, they find themselves fighting not just for the throne, but for the fate of their world—and their very souls.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! If you've clicked on this fic wondering whether you should read it if you've only read one of the source texts—the answer is **yes**, please give it a try! For those who've only read The Folk of the Air, I'm including a glossary of Grishaverse terms at the end of each chapter. For those who've only read the Grishaverse, I'm doing my best to establish the TFOTA characters like everyone's new to them before **[character names redacted]** show up.
> 
> This fic does involve me taking and running with some concepts introduced in _King of Scars_, but those likely won't be appearing until at least chapter ten. Still, if you want to remain completely unspoiled, I would recommend reading that book first.
> 
> And lastly, so many thanks: to [Carling](https://twitter.com/maryswraith) and [Stephanie](https://twitter.com/petites_verites) for being amazing betas; to [Trixie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tourmalinegreen), [Becca](https://twitter.com/torra_doza), and [Tam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voicedimplosives) for alpha reading (and Tam again for inspiring the glossary concept with her thoroughly-researched fics); to my Crossover Central friends on Twitter; and to anyone I've discussed this bonkers concept with who's gone "That sounds awesome!" instead of "That sounds totally ridiculous!" This story is for you. Thank you. ♥

* * *

In another world, in another place, the man might have swept through this sleepy village unnoticed, like a tornado touching down in a far-distant field. He might have come during the night, when the doors were locked and the windows shuttered, and walked along the roughly paved streets like a ghost, like the only man awake in a sea of sleepers. Or if the village had been a different one, had it been on the other side of the True Sea, his presence would have been less unusual, and the villagers would not have stared.

He came at twilight, when the farmers’ stalls were still being packed up and the laborers milled about on the streets, exchanging pleasantries and grousing about the days getting longer. Children played underfoot until called to heel by nervous parents.

The man was seven feet tall, they would say later, with military bearing. Depending on who you asked, he was hideous or he was the most beautiful person anyone had ever seen. One of his legs was stiff, and dragged slightly. The Ravkans who settled here and their children knew the garment he wore by name. The others knew the look of it and knew enough to fear him. His _kefta_ was a deep blood-red with black embroidery—that meant only death could follow him.

Everyone knew where he was going, and they stayed out of his way. The smartest ones went inside and peered through curtains. He paid none of them any mind.

They weren’t why he was here.

In a house just at the edge of the village, Jude and her sisters drowsed on the couch, listening to an audio play. A breeze from the True Sea drifted inland, cooling the balmy evening and bringing on its back the tang of salt, the smell of adventure. But there wasn’t adventure to be had, except the one narrated in a deep, soporific baritone over the crackling radio speaker.

Everything was boring. Everything was fine.

Jude and Taryn looked exactly alike, which made them different. In Shu, which they had learned a little during their many travels, they would be called _kebben_, but they had never met another set of twins like them, not just born on the same day but also identical. Since children view the world through their special narrow lens, that meant they must be the only two identical humans anywhere.

Vivi was oldest and looked like neither of them, but they always knew she was different, too. If anyone displeased Vivi, they would double over with stomach cramps, or start laughing and not be able to stop. One time Jude overheard Mama and Papa talking about sending Vivi to a special school in Novyi Zem when she was older, and had given herself up by running into the room and begging them not to take Vivi away.

So Mama taught them instead, although she could not make anyone laugh by just willing them to or give someone the hiccups with a look. She taught Vivi and Jude and Taryn how to breathe and how to have control and how to think with intent, even though Vivi was the only one who needed those lessons and the twins fidgeted through them. She told them all about the Small Science and how like calls to like, and it never occurred to the girls to question how she knew so much. She was Mama; Mama knew things.

Jude could never be sure when Vivi was using her special talents. Sometimes she did it by accident. She might have been doing it the night the strange man came, making them all sleepy because she was sleepy, too. Taryn had finally drifted off with her head on Vivi’s knee. Jude was about to follow when death knocked on their door.

Stretching her legs, Jude scrambled off the divan to answer the knock. Probably a neighbor coming for dinner, she thought. Maybe with one of those good, spicy meat stews that made you sweat. They’d lived a lot of places, but people were friendliest here in the Southern Colonies.

She opened the door, but instead of a neighbor, she found the man in the red _kefta_ waiting on their front step. Jude had never seen anyone wearing a _kefta_ before, but she knew what they were because her father had one, too—a purple one he kept in his workshop but never put on.

The stranger looked down at Jude like she was an animal that had gotten into the house by mistake. Jude blinked back up at him. He didn’t say a word, but she sensed the storm threatening to push past her threshold. So she called for Mama. Mama would know what to do.

Mama came, wiping red beet juice from her hands with a kitchen towel. When she saw the man in the red _kefta_, she stopped. “Jude,” she said, “go to Maria’s.”

Maria was one of their nice neighbors. Her fields began where Jude’s backyard ended. She had a son who was Jude and Taryn’s age, and after a long day of playing together Maria fed them all dumplings steamed in corn husks that would fill Jude right up. Usually she would leap at the chance to go, but it felt wrong to leave Mama alone with the strange man. She took a couple of steps backward, but stayed in the hall where she could see them.

“Is that your child?” the man asked. He was Ravkan, like Mama, but his accent was stronger. “With him?”

“She’s no one’s,” Mama lied. Jude didn’t know if she’d ever heard Mama lie before, and that scared her more than anything.

“When I was told you were alive, I didn’t believe it,” he said, and he didn’t sound angry. Jude could tell he was angry anyway, and not sounding it just meant all of the anger would come out later, another way. “Not even when I heard I would find you here with Justin.”

“Justin isn’t in the house.”

The man did not say anything to that, although his jaw clenched like he didn’t believe that either. It was true, though. Papa was in his workshop behind the house, doing his projects. People came to Papa when they wanted something fixed, big things like threshing machines or small things like kitchen mixers. He wouldn’t touch a gun, not for any reason, but he liked to make swords and daggers and axes and sell them to people who were collectors. His work meant he was out back a lot of the time.

Slowly, the man withdrew a white envelope from the pocket of his _kefta_ and handed it to Mama. It was a fancy envelope, sturdily made and sealed with a blob of golden wax that had a double eagle stamped into it. Mama took it from the man without touching his hand and broke the seal.

As she read the words on the paper inside, her face went white.

“No,” she whispered.

“He deserted.” His voice hardened. “You both did.”

“I made no vows to the crown,” Mama replied, lifting her chin, but Jude saw the paper tremble in her hand. “Say you never found us. If you ever loved me—”

“I can’t do that, Eva. He knows too much.”

“He won’t use what he knows. He swore it.”

“What good is his word?” the man demanded. “What good is yours?”

“Say we were never here,” Mama pleaded. “Or—send him to prison instead. The children—”

Mama turned toward the living room. Her eyes widened when she saw Jude still standing there, and Jude finally fled back to her sisters. The radio was still playing. Taryn was still asleep. But Vivi was wide awake, and Jude saw that her eyes were the same color as the scary man’s. She blinked, like she could somehow make the resemblance go away.

“What’s going on?” Vivi asked.

“There’s a man here,” Jude said, out of breath. “Mama wants us to go to Maria’s.”

Mama had only told Jude to go to Maria’s, but Jude wasn’t going alone. Vivi didn’t question her, just jostled Taryn with her knee and coaxed her off the sofa, following Jude out of the room.

Before they could push open the back door, they saw their father coming toward them from his workshop, and Jude knew that the storm the stranger had brought to their doorstep was in him, too. He was holding a pair of throwing knives he’d painstakingly recreated from a design he saw years ago, when they briefly made a home in Novyi Zem. Jude had never seen him throw one, he’d never needed to, he would never—

Yet the moment he stepped past the girls, one of the knives flew from his hand toward the man in the red _kefta_. Beside Jude, Taryn gasped.

They all knew Papa talked to the metal. He could make it do what he wanted, go where he told it to go. His aim was true. The knife would go where it was meant.

But it never hit the strange man. He raised a hand, closed it into a fist, and the knife fell out of the air as Papa dropped to his knees. He swayed, and then fell forward. Then he didn’t move anymore.

Mama screamed. The girls screamed. They all screamed except the man in the red _kefta_, who was looking at Vivi.

“You,” he said, like he couldn’t believe it, like it was a question. “You’re mine.”

“You killed him!” Mama cried, backing away from him.

“Eva,” the man cautioned, “if you run—”

Mama ran anyway.

Jude knew where she was going. Mama was trying to get to the pistol in the kitchen drawer, the one with the pearl handle, the one she told the girls not to touch, ever. But she never made it. The man closed his fist again and she crumpled like a ragdoll, her eyes wide open. Blood trickled out of the corner of her mouth.

Then everything was quiet.

Jude started toward the man, but he gave her a look and lifted his hand, palm open, like he was motioning her to stop. Just like that, she found herself unable to move a muscle. She whimpered, held in place. Whimpering changed nothing, so she glared at the man. She wanted the same thing to happen to him that he’d done to Mama and Papa. She wanted his heart to stop, wanted to see him crumple over and not move again.

Her wanting did nothing. All the man did was blink and shake his head once, like he’d been jolted out of a deep trance. Then his eyes fell on Vivi.

“You,” he said again. “Your mother took you from me before you were born. And—now I’ll take you home, to Ravka.”

Vivi shook her head, like it couldn’t be true. “No,” she said. “I won’t go. You can’t make me. If you make me I’ll—”

“Give me stomach pains? Make me feel sick?” The man crouched down, so that he and Vivi were nearly the same height. Vivi recoiled from him. “So you _have_ inherited my gifts. I can feel you trying, child, but you’re not strong enough. Not yet. It’s beyond time you started training at the Little Palace.”

“She’s not like you!” Jude yelled. The man waved his hand again and she shut her mouth with a squeak.

Vivi looked at Jude, frozen like an icicle, and then at Taryn who was kneeling by Mama’s side, trying so hard to wake her up. But Mama wouldn’t wake up. Mama and Papa would never wake up again.

“I can’t go to Ravka,” Vivi said, crossing her arms and glaring. “There’s nobody else who’ll take care of my sisters.”

The man holding Jude still looked only at Vivi. “So you’ll raise them?”

Vivi stood her ground, but she frowned. Jude knew in her heart that it wouldn’t work. She’d like being raised by Vivi, but Vivi didn’t know anything about being an adult. None of them did.

“There are orphanages in Ravka that would take them in,” the man continued. “If I brought them to Keramzin, they would be well cared for.”

“If you take my sisters away, I swear I’ll—I’ll burst your head!” Vivi stomped her foot. “Like a rotten grape!”

The man studied her in silence. “Then they’ll go with you,” he said at last. “I will take them, too. Is that what you want?”

Vivi glanced back at Jude and Taryn, struggling with the offer, wondering if there was a trick. “You can’t hurt them,” she said quietly.

“I swear, they won’t be hurt. They’ll want for nothing.”

Jude knew that was a lie. They’d want their parents. They’d never stop wanting their parents.

The man gave the scene around them a last long look, as though he, like the girls, had found himself in a nightmare from which he could not wake up. He sighed and addressed Vivi again. “Pack your things. We leave in an hour.”

Vivi pulled Taryn away from Mama, and Taryn, weeping, grabbed Jude’s hand. Her sister’s sweaty palm against her skin brought the situation into sharp relief, and Jude felt the world right itself. She was free of the man’s hold. She squeezed Taryn’s hand right back.

Somehow they managed to tear themselves away from that terrible scene, to leave their parents’ bodies cooling on the floor. But before they were out of the hall, Vivi turned back to the man and said, “I hate you. I will never, ever, ever not hate you.”

Jude was proud of the ferocity in her sister’s voice, but she didn’t dare speak. She wouldn’t give the man any reason to seal her jaws shut forever, which he might do even though he’d promised not to hurt them. After all, what good was a promise from a murderer?

She wanted to turn her head and shoot him one last dirty look, but Vivi herded her and Taryn to their rooms to pack.

None of them saw the man raise a hand to his nose and frown at the blood that came away on his black leather glove.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   * What does a _kefta_ look like? This bullet will be updated when the show provides me with an official reference, but for now check out [Leigh Bardugo's inspo board on Pinterest](https://www.pinterest.com/lbardugo/kefta-inspiration/).
>   * [_Kebben_](https://books.google.com/books?id=TgtVDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT482&lpg=PT482&dq=kebben+grisha&source=bl&ots=WaBEh63E72&sig=ACfU3U2wlpiMomJJvxdjXkrTM5uskbznnw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjr55rD34rlAhXGFjQIHXOCCwgQ6AEwC3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=kebben&f=false) is a Shu word for twin or close kin.
>   * What are [Grisha](https://thegrishaverse.fandom.com/wiki/Grisha)? What is the [Small Science](https://thegrishaverse.fandom.com/wiki/Small_Science)?
>   * We know very little about what the Southern Colonies are like, aside from that they've been, well, colonized (at least by Ravka, maybe by others), so I've taken some liberties. In this fic, the culture before the Ravkans came has [Mesoamerican](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerica) roots; Jude's neighbor makes her tamales. Justin is from this region originally.
>   * What does the Ravkan double eagle look like? You can find it on [the cover of _King of Scars_](https://www.amazon.com/King-Scars-Duology/dp/1250142288).
>   * What is the [Little Palace](https://thegrishaverse.fandom.com/wiki/Little_Palace)?
>   * What is [Keramzin](https://thegrishaverse.fandom.com/wiki/Keramzin)? The orphanage there is notable for several reasons.


	2. Chapter 1

At the Little Palace, there are no single-story houses spaced apart in big yards, no farmers, no neighbors knocking on doors bearing stew.

At the Little Palace, there are servants who change sheets and do laundry. There is a library full of books found nowhere else in the world, and laboratories, and pavilions. And there are the Grisha, too, in their _kefta_ of blue or red or purple, sweeping through the halls with such elegance and grace that they don’t seem entirely of this world.

There is more than enough food to be had at every meal. None of it tastes like my mother’s beetroot soup.


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grisha can bend the world by waving their hands. They never catch the colds that plague us in autumn. They’ll be beautiful as long as they live, and they’ll live very long lives.
> 
> Of course we want to be other than as we are, short-lived and vulnerable and powerless. Of course we want to be like them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🚨🚨🚨 **ALERT** 🚨🚨🚨 This story now has covers drawn by [proporgo](https://twitter.com/proporgo)! They're absolutely astonishing. I'll probably embed them in the fic at some point, but for now you can find them on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/destiniesfic/status/1183827407725187072) and [Tumblr](https://destiniesfic.tumblr.com/post/188348366613/). Check them out, they are _gorgeous_.

I wake to sunlight warming my face. Autumn is nearly here, and there’s less sun every day, but the light still wakes me well before I need to leave for breakfast. My body has long learned the routine of this place. The days aren’t all the same, but there is a rhythm to them that I like.

With a giant yawn, I stretch, then I linger in bed for a few more minutes, trying to clear the cobwebs of sleep from my mind. Lying still does nothing to sweep them away, so I push myself up and pad to the washroom, where I splash my face with water and clean my teeth.

My clothes are laid out on the chest at the foot of my bed, left by an unseen servant. Once my cheeks are red from drying and the inside of my mouth tastes like mint, I dress. Taryn and I don’t get to wear the _kefta_, the uniforms of the Grisha: red for Corporalki, blue for Etherealki, purple for Fabrikators. After all, we are not Grisha, and we are never allowed to forget that we have more in common with the servants who lay out our clothes than we do our classmates.

Our father was a skilled Fabrikator. Neither of us inherited an ounce of his talent, even though, as giggling children, we’d sometimes pass our hands over our girlish pieces of costume jewelry, trying to melt and reshape them into flowers or animals. But that doesn’t matter. We are Madoc’s now, and Madoc is one of the three members of the Grisha Triumvirate, and he lives in the Little Palace, so that is where we live also.

After the deaths of our parents, it would have been easy for Madoc to send us away to some _otkazat’sya_ school, to put us out of sight and out of his mind. But he didn’t. Out of regret or pity or obligation, he raised us on the grounds of the Little Palace, alongside our sister and all of the other young Grisha mastering the Small Science. We trailed along with them to their classes, learning the practical bits and watching with envy as they grew into their powers. Little ghosts. _Malenchki_.

_Otkazat’sya_ means orphaned, abandoned. I don’t know how well that describes other people who aren’t Grisha, but the name suits us all too well. If we were bolder children, less wistful, we would wear the term as armor, embrace that which makes us different, believe we were special to be ordinary. But in our hearts we still long to be extraordinary.

I’m standing before the vanity trying to finger-comb tangles from my curls when Taryn flies through the unlocked door of my room, bright-eyed, her school satchel clutched in her arms.

“Nice coat,” she says, grinning at me.

When we were young, fresh off the airship that carried us across the True Sea, Taryn and I used to fall asleep in the same bed in the dormitory rooms we shared with the other girls. She would lie next to me on her back, and I would breathe evenly until her breathing matched mine, until it slowed down. Together, we kept the nightmares at bay.

Now we’re older and we have our own, separate rooms, high-ceilinged and luxurious. We snuck through each other’s windows less and less until at some point, we stopped entirely. Now we’ll do homework together and then say goodnight. I know that it’s all part of growing up, but by this time next year—if not sooner—we’ll have graduated, and there’s a part of me that wants my sister close while I still have her.

She’s right about the coat, though. It’s newly made, since our measurements are still changing year on year, and it _is_ really nice.

It would be fitting if our jackets were the white and gold of palace livery, but they are green instead, a grass green far brighter than the coats worn by infantrymen of the King’s Army, and embroidered with gold at the sleeves and cuffs. They are not _kefta_, and they are not army uniforms. They are something in between, as we are in between, _otkazat’sya_ playing pretend.

Taryn sits on my bed with her satchel balanced on her lap, bouncing once on the mattress. “This term is going to be fun,” she says.

I am incredulous. “Fun?”

“Wasn’t last term fun?”

“Last term was _better_,” I admit, sitting next to her. “But not because of anything we did.”

“So? Circumstances haven’t changed. And we’re in our last year now,” she says, with a wistful little sigh. “On top of the world. Or the school, at least. And come on, you like lessons.”

I do like our lessons. To make up for my other shortcomings, I study hard. And I do well. No one can take that from me, even if some of the lecturers will call on Taryn and me last when a Grisha hand is raised.

“I just feel like we have everything we need,” I say aloud. “How much more can we learn? We can’t master the advanced Grisha techniques. We have better marks in combat than the rest of the class—”

“Well, _you_ do,” Taryn interjects.

I run my thumb over my scarred ring finger. “I’m ready to be an _oprichnik_,” I tell her. “I don’t need another year of study. I can learn by doing.”

“You want to graduate early?”

“I could do it.”

Just voicing it aloud makes it seem truer. After the Ravkan Civil War two centuries ago, there was some hesitancy to reinstate the _oprichniki_—they’d all sided with the Darkling, after all—but given the way technological advances made the Grisha increasingly vulnerable, they were necessary. These elite soldiers now guard the Grisha Triumvirate.

And I would be one. I’ve known it for years. We have options, Taryn and I. We could take up a trade or leave Ravka altogether as our sister Vivi has, maybe for university in Ketterdam. But as horrible as it can sometimes be, and although it is where our parents’ murderer chose to raise us, we are smitten with the Little Palace, with its carved walls, its golden domes, and its proximity to court. Guarding the Triumvirate would mean that while I might leave on missions, I would always come back.

Taryn opens her mouth, but closes it when Oriana, Madoc’s wife, sweeps into the room, slim and graceful as a willow tree and pale and distant as the moon. Behind her, gracelessly, their son Oak scampers into the room, flinging himself bodily onto the bed and landing on his stomach between me and Taryn. Taryn laughs, and I smile, too.

“Good morning, _bratchka_,” I say. “Are you excited for school?”

Oak rolls over. “No,” he says, pouting. “But I want to watch Mama make you pretty.”

I understand. Oak’s going into his second year of the lower school, but he rarely gets to see adults use their powers. It’s exciting, getting a glimpse into the world of grown-ups.

“That’s not nice,” Taryn teases. “Aren’t we already pretty?” She ruffles his hair, and he sticks his tongue out at her before conjuring a slight breeze to ruffle her hair back.

“Oak, remember your manners,” Oriana admonishes. “We’re short on time. One of you, come here.”

Taryn is practically wriggling for a makeover, so I let her go first. She takes her seat in front of my vanity and Oriana begins her work, running her hands through Taryn’s hair and taming her thick auburn waves. Occasionally she takes a little gold thread from her kit and weaves it in so that Taryn’s hair looks perpetually sun-kissed, shimmering when it’s tossed.

Then Oriana works on Taryn’s face, erasing the bags under her eyes and a couple of adolescent spots until her skin is smooth and even. She adds a little color to her lips and cheeks, and then she is finished.

We aren’t Grisha, but Taryn looks almost like one, with her glowing skin and shiny hair, full of vitality. She is very, very pretty, even more so for the brilliant smile on her face. She doesn’t hug Oriana, but gives her warm and sincere thanks.

Then it’s my turn.

“Not too much,” I say, taking Taryn’s place on the vanity bench. “Just a little.”

Oriana scoffs. “You get equal treatment. Sit still.”

She says that like sitting still is the hardest part, when the hardest part is actually staring at myself in the mirror for so long, unable to look away.

It is nice to be touched, though. Oriana is one of a cadre of Tailors who attend to the men and women of the court, and her fingers are gentle, even when she is tackling a problem as tough as the circles under my eyes or winding my uncooperative hair into a pair of buns.

The price for all of this, for being attended to like a court lady one day every three months, is a lecture on proper conduct at school. It’s the same one we get every year, on deportment and gratitude, always gratitude. We know we are lucky to be here. I’m not sure what Oriana thinks reminding us will do.

“Mama,” Oak whines, weaving his way around Oriana’s red _kefta_, “I want to go to school with Jude and Taryn.”

“You’ll have those lessons when you’re older,” Oriana promises. Of course, she can’t tell him he’ll go to school with us. By the time he’s out of the lower school we’ll be long gone, off to futures that may take us far away from palaces both Grand and Little.

I haven’t asked what Taryn’s plans are yet.

A few more minutes of holding still, a few more reminders of how we are to behave so that we don’t shame Madoc and his family, and then we’re released to get breakfast before classes start. We sprint downstairs to the Hall of the Golden Dome, where adult Grisha lounge and talk amongst themselves. The eponymous dome stands tall and proud far above their heads, as it has for hundreds of years, its perfection marred only by the famous two-hundred-year old crack, mended but obvious.

My eyes often wander to that crack when I am eating or just lost in thought. I look up at it and wonder what it felt like to wield that kind of power, enough power to bring the dome down, to split the world in two. I bet it felt good.

The few advanced students like us, not-quite-adults who opted to continue their studies instead of graduate at sixteen, shovel down food before morning lessons. We hasten to do the same, far past the point of finding any of this strange, but gaze wistfully over our porridge at the Grisha who talk amongst themselves.

Amazement fades, maybe. Longing doesn’t. Grisha can bend the world by waving their hands. They never catch the colds that plague us in autumn. They’ll be beautiful as long as they live, and they’ll live very long lives.

Of course we want to be other than as we are, short-lived and vulnerable and powerless. Of course we want to be like them.

Our sister Vivi scolds us for this thinking, reminding us that if we didn’t live in Ravka, it would be different. The Fjerdans aren’t kind to the Grisha, nor are the Shu, although things are better than they were. But we don’t live in Fjerda or Shu Han. We live here, and it’s easy to forget that here is not everywhere.

Vivi herself was lucky enough to inherit Madoc’s talents, although she didn’t want them once she learned from whom they came. She decided to do what would annoy him most and specialized in healing, not hurting. We came to her with skinned knees, with our burns and scratches. But there was no healing our bruised pride.

When Vivi graduated a year ago, she forsook the Little Palace entirely. By then we were old enough to take care of ourselves and make our own choices, and though she asked us to join her, we both chose to stay. So she crossed the True Sea to tour Novyi Zem with Rhyia, one of the younger princesses and her closest friend. She hasn’t come back.

I miss her most on mornings like these. I am still waiting for her to sneak up behind us with a sharp-tongued complaint, a disparaging remark about her cohort. But she is gone. We got her last letter two weeks ago, just after the end of the summer term.

“Do you want to go west?” I ask Taryn, as we walk toward our first lesson, history, which is in the library. “Like Vivi?”

She gives me an incredulous look. “Why would I want to go west? The whole world is here.”

That’s not true, but I know what she means. Despite how we don’t belong, despite how awful this place and these people can sometimes be, she loves it here. And I love it, too.

Now that classes are back in session, Taryn and I are once again among our peers, if they can truly be called that. The students with homes to go to have finished trickling back from their family visitations. Summer term had been fine, mostly because spring saw the graduation of a few bad actors, but there is no guarantee that fall will be the same.

Thankfully, our first few lessons pass without incident. We are given our new syllabi and turn in the work we did over the break. After lunch, the Grisha split into their denominations to practice their skills, which means our time is free. I want to spend that block at the shooting range with my pistol, but Taryn convinces me to go with her to the Summoners’ pavilions instead.

“It’ll be spectacular,” she says, arguing that they’ll have had two weeks away from practice and therefore be eager to flaunt.

In fairness, the Etherealki do know how to put on a show, so I agree. But when we are walking down the path to the lake, Taryn abruptly stops in her tracks.

“What?” I ask, looking not at what’s ahead of us, but at her.

“Nothing,” she says, threading her arm through mine. “It’s a nice day and it’s going to get cold soon. Let’s take the long way around the lake. Just savor it.”

I frown. “But we’ll be late.”

Taryn shrugs and tries to steer me into turning around. “It’s not like they can’t start without us.”

“What’s gotten into you?” I shake her off and turn around. “Why does it matter what—”

And then I see what Taryn doesn’t want me to see, what she had seen first. There is a knot of people clustered up ahead. Locke and Nicasia are easy to spot, in their blue _kefta_ with their bright hair, fox-fur red and Tailored turquoise, respectively. They had been in our morning lessons. There’s another girl with them from the year below ours, Corporalki, but I don’t know her name. She’s on the arm of a tall boy in military dress whom I hoped I’d never see again.

Apparently I am not that lucky.

The mandatory draft has long been a thing of the past, but all of the princes and princesses still put in two years of military service, even the youngest and most horrible of them. Prince Cardan wears medals pinned to his uniform that he couldn’t possibly have earned for skill or valor. He looks the same otherwise, awfully handsome in the most literal way, although it is strange to see him in anything other than a blue silk _kefta_.

And the army didn’t make him cut his hair. It curls over his collar, black as the night sky. For some reason, that annoys me more than anything.

Valerian, another of Cardan’s terrible friends whom I’d hoped was gone for good, is the first to notice us looking. The substance of whatever he says is lost on the wind, but his mocking tone is not. Cardan turns his head in our direction, barely, and his mouth curls into a sneer. Nothing has changed, then. The peace we felt in his absence had only ever been an illusion. We only knew three months of it, just the one summer term, and already it is being snatched away from us.

Cardan’s friends follow his gaze over to us. When Nicasia sees that we’re all that’s caught his attention, she tosses her shiny hair and murmurs something to Locke. Valerian’s eyes are hard, like blue diamonds.

Then Cardan makes a dismissive remark and turns back to the girl on his arm, and we are invisible once more. Except to Locke, who looks at us until Nicasia nudges him back to attention.

“Stop staring,” Taryn mutters.

I shake my head. “It’s going to get worse again.”

And it will. I know it will. The youngest prince and his friends don’t set out to make our lives miserable. We are far beneath their notice most of the time, and Madoc’s status affords us some protection. There are other, better targets, younger and weaker Grisha from impoverished families to be mocked.

But they manage misery anyway, because they are its masters, and because the example they set is powerful. When Cardan was gone, some of the other students joined us at mealtimes and bade us hello in the halls. When he was here, we received only furtive glances and silence and sometimes worse. I think I have mostly shielded Taryn from worse.

“Just ignore it,” Taryn says, leading me away.

Alarm bells clang in my head. That is so much easier to say than to do.

We cross the lake the other way, but I don’t let them out of my sight until we sit in the familiar shade of the white stone pavilions. When class begins, Valerian and Prince Cardan bid their friends goodbye and head through the trees to the Grand Palace.

I am not sure why they are back, but I have a sinking feeling I will soon find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   * For more on Grisha classifications, follow [this link](https://thegrishaverse.fandom.com/wiki/Grisha#Grisha_Classifications)!
>   * There are no school terms in the Grisha trilogy—young Grisha were taken from their families and kept at the school. But Nikolai and the Triumvirate were in the process of reforming that system, so I like to imagine that some sort of visitation protocol was put in place. There are seasonal terms now, with two weeks off in between.
>   * Some Ravkan! Jude explains _otkazat'sya_ and _malenchki_ here, but _bratchka_ is a word I made up—"brat" is Russian for brother, and "-ch-" is the Ravkan diminutive (see: _sobachka_). (If this means something in an existing language, please let me know.)
>   * Who is the [Darkling](https://thegrishaverse.fandom.com/wiki/The_Darkling)? (spoilery for the grisha trilogy)
>   * What is the [Grisha Triumvirate](https://thegrishaverse.fandom.com/wiki/Grisha_Triumvirate)? (also spoilery for the grisha trilogy)
>   * Where is [Ketterdam](https://thegrishaverse.fandom.com/wiki/Ketterdam)?
>   * What is [Tailoring](https://thegrishaverse.fandom.com/wiki/Tailoring)?
>   * For how it felt to crack the Golden Dome like an egg, see chapter 13 of _Siege and Storm_. (Terrifying, iirc.)
>   * Where are [Novyi Zem](https://thegrishaverse.fandom.com/wiki/Novyi_Zem), [Fjerda](https://thegrishaverse.fandom.com/wiki/Fjerda), and [Shu Han](https://thegrishaverse.fandom.com/wiki/Shu_Han)?


	4. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains major spoilers for the end of _Ruin and Rising_ (although much time has passed and Jude & co. don't have all of the details correct). If you want to remain completely unspoiled for the end of The Grisha Trilogy, stop reading now and come back once you're done!

“It’s like one of the problems Madoc would give us,” I muse, frowning at the battle plans I’ve laid out on Taryn’s floor.

Our childhood will always have a _before_ and an _after_. Some of the most vivid memories _after_ are of sitting in front of a fire with Madoc as he posed hypothetical problems for us to solve: how fifty Grisha might win against a battalion of Fjerdans, or the minimum number of airships to make a fortress crumble, justified with a plan of attack. I don’t know if the quizzing was meant to help us see the world his way or to keep us busy, but I liked the challenge, and I liked the small ways he’d show his approval, through sharp nods and smiles, rarest of all, through compliments.

Those exercises have helped us in class quite a bit. But in poring over our latest assignment, we are stumped.

Here is the battlefield:

From the east: three glass skiffs, teeming with trained soldiers and experienced Grisha. From the west: thirteen _otkazat’sya_ fighters, most undertrained, and a handful of Grisha who were barely out of school. Knowing the way history plays out, I suppose I should have more sympathy for the men and women on the skiffs, but I’ve been tasked to see the battle from both sides, pretending not to know the outcome of the Ravkan Civil War.

Obviously the good guys won, because we’re not condemned to darkness eternal or whatever would have happened if the Darkling had his way. But trying to recreate the winning side’s _strategy_ without consulting any notes baffles me.

“This is so much worse than anything Madoc would throw at us,” Taryn remarks, looking over from where she lies on her stomach on the bed.

“Much worse.” I sketch a couple of lines, frown at them, and rub them away with my eraser. “Our footsoldiers need a miracle.”

“They get one,” Taryn says, gently lobbing a small, decorative pillow at my head. “That’s the point.”

I sigh, but Taryn is right, of course. Some scholars posit that all of the saints were simply powerful Grisha, and if that were true and no divine intervention was on her side, Sankta Alina was insanely lucky, or at least had very good timing. I can’t figure out which.

The puzzle is a good one, though. Alina is by far the newest of all the saints, having lived and died only two centuries ago. She’s contemporary enough—and accounts of the battle are thorough enough—that we can study her as a tactician, and she’s mythical enough that everyone perks up when her name is mentioned. And then groans at the extra homework.

“We need to win the battle _without_ a miracle,” I return.

“I don’t think she had any idea what she was doing,” Taryn says, peering over my shoulder. “Any sane person would have run away.”

“Some fights are too important to run from.” I sit up, crossing my legs. “But yeah, I’m beginning to think that maybe she was crazy.”

Taryn rests her chin on another pillow. “She was probably scared.”

I tap the pencil against the map. “Of course she was scared. Or maybe she was too tired to be scared. Or angry. Or full of adrenaline.”

“Distracted,” Taryn suggests, “because she knew she had to kill the man she loved.”

I know where she wants to go with this, but I play dumb anyway. “Hmm, yeah. She _did_ sacrifice her lover—”

“No!” Taryn chucks another pillow at me.

This time, I catch it. “Historical records agree Malyen Oretsev _was_ her lover.”

“You’re so annoying.” Taryn turns over onto her back, letting her head hang over the side of the bed. “You know I’m talking about the Darkling.”

I lean against the side of the bed, resting my head next to hers. “I know. I just don’t get it.”

But I do seem to be one of the few people who doesn’t. A few years ago, when Oriana took us into Os Alta to see the Imperial Ravkan Ballet, they had reenacted the Sol Koroleva story with particular emphasis on the romantic aspects—her fleeing the palace at midnight got special attention, as did the embraces of her lovers. Taryn sobbed through the last act; Vivi let out a soft whoop when Alina plunged her dagger into the Darkling’s chest. Most dances require partners, sure, and romance provides partners, but it seemed to me that the ballet seemed to miss the point of the story, whatever that might be. Maybe the same as every other saint’s tale: faith and triumph and sacrifice.

There was a drama about her life filmed earlier this year which hit on those themes a little more. Taryn and Vivi and I gathered around the viewing screen, a massive, clunky thing with copper-plated sides, to watch every Wednesday night before Vivi went away. True, that telling had not shied away from romance either, between too-pretty actors with emotive eyes. But it had also focused on historical fact: Alina Starkov, canonized as Sankta Alina, lead an uprising that brought down the Darkling, who himself had claimed the Ravkan throne in a _coup d’etat_. Alina Starkov lived long enough to defeat the Darkling, but she died shortly after, although not before giving her blessing to King Nikolai and the first Grisha Triumvirate, who proceeded to piece Ravka back together. That’s how it goes.

The preoccupation with the romance makes some sense, I guess. Alina’s lovers were rumored to include not only the Darkling and her childhood friend Malyen Oretsev, but maybe even King Nikolai himself, merely a prince then. That, say some whispers, is why the royal line occasionally produces Grisha now, even though Alina Starkov died long before either of Nikolai Lantsov’s children were born. Still, everyone loves a love story, or a love triangle, or a love rectangle.

Taryn is full of her own explanations. “What’s not to get? He was dark and handsome and dangerous, she was young and bright and powerful.” She sighs. “And they were the only two like each other in the world.”

“It sounds like they were opposites.”

“You know what I _mean_.” Taryn flicks my hair. “Don’t they say opposites attract? Besides, they were alike because of their uniqueness. _Like calls to like_.”

“You can’t have it both ways,” I argue back. “Besides, he put a _collar_ on her.”

“And she overcame that. They were equals. They could have been a match, a _real_ match, as opposites and equals, but they destroyed each other instead. That’s what’s so sad.”

“If I were Alina,” I say, “I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.”

Taryn rolls her eyes. “You just don’t get it. You’ve never been in love.”

I want to ask if she’s been in love, but the words wither before I can speak them. I want to believe I’d know—that Taryn would tell me—but I’m not sure. We are growing older, but we are also growing apart.

“There’s nothing more romantic than to want the thing that destroys you,” Taryn continues. “I just wish…”

She trails off, expecting me to mock her further. But I can’t blame Taryn for wishing. How many _otkazat’sya_ girls dreamt of being like Sankta Alina, waiting for a beautiful man to discover their hidden power and sweep them into a world of adventure and intrigue, no matter the cost?

How easy it is to forget the sacrifices she made or how short her life was. She’d been our age, or just a little older, when the war ended. When she sacrificed herself to end it.

“She died,” I say. “They both died. They all die. That’s why they’re Saints.”

“Not you, Jude,” she teases. “You’re going to live forever. If anyone’s going to figure it out, it’ll be you.”

I roll my eyes, but something she says lodges in the back of my mind, itching there. I look again at the battle map, chewing on my lower lip.

“Oh!” I exclaim. “I have it. I know how to win the battle.”

Taryn picks up her head. “You do? How?”

“I’ll tell you in class tomorrow.”

“Jude!”

I gather up the map and spring to my feet. “Thanks for the help, though.”

“_Jude_.” Taryn rolls onto her stomach, kicks her feet out, and then sighs. “Fine. I guess you’re entitled to your secrets.”

I am out of the room, grinning at my own cleverness, before I even think to wonder what she means.

* * *

I wake early, brimming with anticipation and the easy confidence that it doesn’t matter if anyone messes with me today because I’ll have the answers and they won’t.

But the day quickly turns against me when Taryn feels unwell and begs off class. I bring her breakfast from the main hall and tell her my solution as she sips wanly at her tea, then leave her to rest and head to my lessons. They’re always a little unbearable when I’m alone, but still nothing I can’t bear.

Or so I think.

As I’m squeezing through the library door, satchel over my shoulder, someone bumps against me. I turn to look and, when I find Locke there, brace myself for some snide remark.

To my great surprise, he smiles and says, “Oh, sorry, Jude.”

I would have liked it better if he ignored me. At least I know what that feels like. I blink. “It’s fine.”

He nods, still smiling, and goes to join Nicasia at the big table in the library’s center. Cardan and Valerian are here, too, leaning against one of the shelves and chatting amongst themselves. I haven’t seen either of them for a few days, not since we glimpsed them by the lake. But all I can do is pretend they don’t exist and hope they’ll do me the same courtesy, that they won’t torment me in small ways through whispering or tripping me or stealing my favorite pen for the seventeenth time. I take my usual seat, far away from where they’re standing, and make a show of reviewing my notes.

When our lecturer, a white-haired scholar, arrives, everyone sits down. Including Cardan and Valerian.

“Prince Cardan,” says the lecturer with undisguised surprise, as Cardan takes the seat next to Locke, and Valerian takes the seat on his other side. “I wasn’t aware that you would be joining us.”

He doesn’t comment on Valerian’s presence. Wherever Prince Cardan goes, it is known that his meanest and fanciest friends follow. If Locke and Nicasia hadn’t been a year younger than him, they might have even followed him after graduation as Valerian did, or tried to. It’s been rumored that once Nicasia is done with her schooling, her mother will recall her to Kerch.

“For some reason, we didn’t cover the Civil War in as much depth my year.” Cardan leans forward, resting his chin on his hand. “I would so love to know what I missed.”

The scholar pushes his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. He can’t deny Cardan anything. “Well, if you’re here to learn…”

Valerian snickers.

“I’m here for my education, to be sure,” Cardan says, which isn’t the same thing. He takes his elbow off the table and drapes it over the back of his chair, lounging nearly sideways now. He gives one of his terrible smiles. “Don’t bore me.”

The scholar clears his throat. “Then we’ll begin with the assignment. Did anyone…”

I put my hand up immediately.

He sighs. “Anyone else?”

I bristle. Maybe he thinks Madoc helped me. That would be impossible; Madoc is at the Fjerdan front, and I’m not about to bother him with my homework while he has other things to do.

After the scholar circles the room for answers, which include having Alina blind everyone with light—ridiculous, because it would take too much concentration even for a Grisha of her caliber and she’d blind her own troops just the same—to having the Squallers knock over the skiffs—they’re too heavy—the discussion inevitably circles back to me.

“It’s not about incapacitating as many people as possible,” I say the instant I’m called on, practically wriggling in my seat. “It’s not a numbers game at all.”

“And why is that?”

“Because you don’t need to defeat everyone on the skiffs. You only need to kill or capture one. The Darkling is the linchpin.” The scholar presses his lips together. I’m on the right track. “The fighting will stop if he dies. Same with Sankta Alina. His followers believe him to be like a god, and hers believe her to be their last hope. Get to either of them and the fighting stops.”

“But the Darkling has more men,” Nicasia sniffs. “That _matters_.”

I shake my head. “It doesn’t. Not in this case. Not to the Darkling.” My voice rises as I speak. “He didn’t think of himself as a regular Grisha. He thought he would live forever. He thought he couldn’t be killed. And with his reputation for—”

“_Nichevo’ya_,” Cardan says. “The shadow soldiers.”

I stare at him. I feel a prickle of irritation at being interrupted, but I am mostly surprised he’s contributed something of value to the conversation. He catches my look and shrugs one shoulder, then leans back in his chair looking bored again, bracing one foot on the side of the table.

Our lecturer shifts his weight nervously. “Correct,” he says, probably happy to allow a prince to score a point. “Now that Jude has identified—”

Valerian rolls his eyes. “The _nichevo’ya_ were campfire stories,” he scoffs, hitting Cardan’s knee with someone’s pen. “They weren’t real.”

“Stories work,” Locke points out. “They demoralize the enemy.”

“Yes,” I say, reclaiming the conversation. I wasn’t finished with my answer, anyway. “People really thought that he could raise his arms and conjure an army. From what we know of the Darkling, he started to believe his own lies. He thought he was invincible, so he wasn’t going to hide behind his men. All Sankta Alina had to do was get close enough to kill him. If she could keep her forces hidden long enough and have them draw his troops’ attention, the battle was as good as won.”

The scholar nods, and pride blossoms behind my ribs. “That is what she did, give or take a few details,” he says. “Now, the Sun Summoners were created at the battle’s—”

“Yes, I know. _My_ family can trace its lineage back to the Soldat Sol,” Valerian boasts. Valerian himself is a Sun Summoner, his _kefta_ blue and gold, but I’d be less than shocked to learn his distant ancestor was one of the Darkling’s _oprichniki_ instead of one of the Soldat Sol. _Otkazats’ya_ soldiers on both sides were changed by Sankta Alina’s sacrifice, transformed into Grisha no matter who they fought for.

Must have been nice.

Then again, I wouldn’t want to have anything in common with Valerian. Not even if it meant having the power to scatter light with my hands.

The scholar does not appreciate the interruption, but acknowledges Valerian anyway. “The Sun Summoners were created when—”

“Boring,” Cardan complains. “That wasn’t nearly as sensational a story as I’d been led to believe.”

“If you’re looking for a horror story, I’m afraid you won’t find one here, Prince Cardan. Nor a love story. We only examine historical fact, not old gossip.”

“But there _was_ romance,” says Nicasia, shaking out her blue hair. “Several romances. Everyone knows that.”

Locke seems uninterested. Locke is looking at me. I shift in my seat.

“You have to wonder how she drew him out,” Valerian remarks, grinning at himself. “They were prudes in those days. Maybe a bit of shoulder…”

One of the other girls gasps. “You can’t talk about a Saint like that,” she says, even though none of the Grisha are particularly religious.

“It’s not like she’s around to care,” Valerian counters, getting even more comfortable in his seat.

“Isn’t it a better story if they were in love?” asks Locke, sounding strangely innocent among all the clamor.

“Love doesn’t win wars,” I say. Which is a mistake, because now everyone is looking at me again.

Locke smiles inscrutably. “But it can start them.”

“Sure, maybe. But wars are won through strategy and willingness to make hard choices. Sankta Alina won because she could do what needed to be done. Love would have only made things worse for her.”

A ripple of murmurs follow my comment. Then Cardan says, “I think we should listen to Jude.”

I don’t like this at all. My shoulders square, readying for a fight. Although I doubt this will come to blows, part of me wishes it would. Blows are easier won than words.

“After all,” he continues, a smirk playing across his lips, “she’s uniquely qualified, is she not? Before Alina was a saint, she spent seventeen years as a talentless peasant girl. Jude is the only person here who knows what that’s like.”

Giggles spread through the library, echoing off of the shelves. Cardan’s smirk deepens. He enjoys commanding attention. He likes holding court. The lesson is firmly out of our lecturer’s grasp, and the old scholar doesn’t seem inclined to reclaim it anytime soon.

Valerian sneers. “At least Alina got powers. What does Jude have?”

“Nothing,” Nicasia adds, eager to contribute. “Not one thing.”

“Don’t be so hasty. Jude could have powers beyond your greatest imagining,” Locke says, and Nicasia shoots him a warning glare that I don’t understand.

Cardan continues to look across the table at me. His dark eyes are like deep pits, hungrily swallowing up any trace of the soft library light. “Well, tell us what they are, Jude. You seem so determined to fall on your sword.”

“I’m no martyr.” I begin to gather up my notes. Class is clearly over.

“Really?” Cardan scoffs. “You’ve fooled me.”

I hold his stare and say, “That doesn’t seem very hard to do.”

Valerian’s glare hardens. Locke lets out a low whistle. Cardan’s face barely changes, but his voice holds the promise of future menace. “Our very own Sankta Jude. What are you the patron saint of? Futility? Hopeless causes?”

“Pissing you off.” I stuff my books in my bag and give him a mocking half-bow. “I have to go check on my sister, _moi tsarevich_, so now I’ll take my leave of you.”

His mouth turns down at the corners. “Don’t forget what all the good saints do,” he calls after me. “They die.”

* * *

I don’t go to my next lesson. I dart into the main hall just long enough to get food, then I go sit outside, looking at the gray lake. Clouds hang heavy over the lawn, threatening to burst.

Maybe class would have been more tolerable with Taryn at my side. Likely she would have pinched my thigh and tried to keep me quiet. That might have been better, not giving anyone the opportunity to mock me. But I almost feel like keeping my big mouth shut would have stung just as much, if not more.

Footsteps crunch in the grass behind me. I turn, only to see an unwelcome visitor—Locke approaching me from the Little Palace, the wind ruffling his fox-fur hair.

“Don’t worry,” he says, when he sees me tense and hold my food closer. “I’m not here to further the metaphor. I just want to talk.”

“I don’t think I should believe you.”

He sits down next to me, crossing his legs. “Is Taryn feeling better? You said you had to check on her.”

My eyes narrow, but I say, “Just a flu, I think. It’ll pass. She needs to rest.”

Locke nods, looking at the lake. “I haven’t gotten sick since I was a child,” he says. “I’m not sure I remember what it feels like.”

“You’re lucky.”

“Maybe.” He gives me a little smile. “My mother would fuss over me. That, I miss. Being taken care of. Your sister is the lucky one.”

“Surely your mother still fusses.” I think of Oriana with Oak. “That’s what they do, right?”

“She passed away,” Locke says softly. “Nearly eight years ago.”

“Oh,” I say, awkwardly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It’s all right.” He looks at the lake again, but he’s still smiling. “She loved this place. The Little Palace. The court. She wouldn’t want me to give myself to melancholy.” Then he turns back to me. “Let’s talk about happier things.”

I snort. “What things?”

He shrugs, and his left hand moves. I look over to see him fiddling with a lighter tucked up the sleeve of his blue and red _kefta_. When he notices me watching, he thumbs the lighter once again, more deliberately. A fire, much larger than the single flickering lick of flame a lighter alone would produce, blooms to life in front of him, tinting the points of his face: chin, cheekbones, nose. Like all of Cardan’s awful friends, he is unfairly handsome.

Locke passes the fire from his left hand to his right, and then holds it out to me. Another of the Inferni could accept it from him, but I shake my head, unable to sustain fire or bend it to my will.

“Warm your hands, at least,” he says, nudging the fire toward me. I have no way to know he won’t burn me, but I do anyway, bringing my palms up before the flame. It does feel nice, warm against the chilly air. It also feels strangely transgressive.

“Let’s see,” Locke muses. “I think the Saints are off-limits, topic-wise.”

I groan. “I know so much about that story because Taryn loves it.”

“Taryn and me and half of Ravka.” He cocks his head. “But not you, apparently. You’re not one for romance, are you, Jude?”

My name sounds strangely soft from his mouth. I shrug. “I mean, not when talking about the Civil War. It’s not a fairytale. Everybody had a lot of other things to worry about, like staying alive.”

Locke chuckles. “I guess. But what if I argued that dying for a cause is one of the greatest romantic tragedies?”

“I don’t know,” I say, lowering my hands. “I don’t think there’s anything romantic about lives cut short.”

Locke hums and closes his palm. The fire winks out. I miss its heat immediately.

“Better to live well,” he says.

I have no idea what’s going on. “Yes?”

“But…” He conjures another flame, a smaller one, and passes it back and forth from fingertip to fingertip. “Sometimes the shortest lives burn brightest.”

He snaps his finger and the flame vanishes.

“I thought we weren’t continuing the metaphor,” I grouse. “I already told Prince Cardan I have no interest in sainthood.”

Locke beams. “Oh, I think you’re destined for something far more compelling than that.”

“Any idea what? I’m open to suggestions.”

He laughs. “Absolutely none. But isn’t that better?”

I think back to the discussion I had with Taryn about joining the _oprichniki_. _That_ would be compelling. And I wouldn’t have to sit through any other humiliating lessons.

“I’d rather have a plan,” I say.

He frowns, then he looks at my hands, bare of gloves. He picks one up, running his thumb over the back of it. “The fire barely warmed you,” he observes. “Are your hands always this cold?”

Now I truly have no idea what’s going on. I look at my hand in his, my mouth slightly parted, no words coming out. His hands are warm, but their touch sends an odd shiver down my spine.

Over our heads, there is a grumble of thunder.

“I’ll have some tea sent to Taryn,” he says, releasing my hand, “if that would help.”

“Yes,” I say, stunned. “I think she’d like that.”

He smiles, and then he starts back up to the Little Palace. I look after him, still a little dumbstruck, but don’t follow, not until the clouds give another angry rumble and the first cold drops of autumn rain sting my cheeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter graphic is up on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/destiniesfic/status/1184914864789061633) and [Tumblr](https://destiniesfic.tumblr.com/post/188412028808/the-shadow-prince-a-folk-of-the-airgrishaverse)!
> 
>   * Who was [Alina Starkov](https://thegrishaverse.fandom.com/wiki/Alina_Starkov)?
>   * Who was [Malyen Oretsev](https://thegrishaverse.fandom.com/wiki/Malyen_Oretsev)?
>   * Who was [Nikolai Lantsov](https://thegrishaverse.fandom.com/wiki/Nikolai_Lantsov)?
>   * What were the [_nichevo'ya_](https://thegrishaverse.fandom.com/wiki/Nichevo'ya)? (they were real)
>   * Who were the [Soldat Sol](https://thegrishaverse.fandom.com/wiki/Soldat_Sol)?


	5. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is not used to losing. He won’t expect it.
> 
> Good.

Madoc is often away from the Little Palace. He is no ordinary Heartrender. In addition to being one of the sitting members of the Grisha Triumvirate, he is a General of the Second Army. His work takes him to our bases on the borders with Shu Han and Fjerda, to the other Grisha academies in the heartland, and occasionally overseas as part of a diplomatic party, when other nations need a firmer reminder of what would happen if they had any thoughts of breaking a treaty.

The night he came to kill my parents, he had a warrant for it.

We only pieced this together from the taunting of the other children. Bad enough that _otkazat’sya_ girls should learn among them, worse that they should be the daughters of traitors. It was an easy means of mocking us for a while, our traitor parents, until they moved onto something more interesting.

It shouldn’t matter, the warrant. It doesn’t to Vivi. So what if they were traitors to the Ravkan crown, she would say to us at night when we were still little enough for our anger and sorrow to be raw. What was the Ravkan crown to us? If Mama fled her marriage to Madoc and Papa fled with her, deserting the Second Army, they must have had good reason. Besides, a Heartrender knows dozens of ways to subdue someone without killing them. He didn’t have to kill them. They didn’t have to die.

In our hearts, Taryn and I know this. But the longer we spend among the Grisha, the more the ache subsides. And Madoc has always kept his word. Although only Vivi was his child by blood, he never skimped in his treatment of us. We were not denied any luxury she received. We were treated as nothing less than daughters.

True, he would not read us stories of the saints as Mama had—not Vivi’s favorite, the legend of Sankt Ilya, nor mine, Sankt Juris and the dragon, nor Taryn’s, Sankta Alina of the Fold. His life was his work. From the age of seven, Taryn and I would fall asleep to his deep voice reading histories or battle strategies. He never lifted us onto his shoulders or played imagination games, only war games. And although we had no powers, he taught us to be more lethal with pistols and rifles and knives than almost any Grisha fighter. Sometimes he threw swordplay in the mix just for fun, even though nobody’s used swords in battle for hundreds of years.

We loved our parents. The idea that they were traitors should have sat more uneasily with us. But in a world where their murderer read to us at bedtime, there was no contradiction too great for us to embrace. They could be traitors, our parents, and we would love them still.

So we love their murderer, too.

Every so often—when Madoc is not away, and the demands of our coursework don’t keep us confined to our rooms, poring over textbooks—we dine together as a family. And what a strange family we are: Madoc’s wife, her son with him, and the two adopted daughters of the prior wife, who fled. We assemble in his private rooms in the Little Palace, which he has shared with Oriana since their marriage. Someone, a servant, fetches Oak from the school, and Taryn and I are never far away, waiting only for word to come.

We sit down together at the long wooden table in what is sometimes a dining room, sometimes a private meeting room. The decor is all maps and tall bookshelves of stain-darkened wood. Tonight, Vivi’s absence is conspicuously felt. She never had a lot of patience for these dinners, but for some weird reason I miss the tension.

Of course I know she’s happier away from here. She never fell in love with this place like Taryn and I did. She is well within her rights to leave. But I’m well within my rights to miss her.

The meal begins innocuously enough. The usual pleasantries are exchanged. Madoc, returned from the border, sums up his visit in the vaguest possible terms; presumably the rest is classified, given the ever-tense state of Ravkan-Fjerdan relations. Taryn and I report on our classes while Oak huffs and whines over his—he’s still new to schooling and would rather be outside, running around.

“Prince Cardan’s been putting in appearances at the school,” Taryn says, over soup. She ignores my warning glance. “We thought he was with the troops at Poliznaya.”

“He was,” says Madoc. “He’s been recalled to the palace. King Eldred has taken ill.”

Taryn and I glance at each other. We didn’t know that. That’s the sort of thing you generally don’t tell the children, and maybe this means we’re on the edge of adulthood. Maybe we really are growing up.

“It must be serious, then,” I venture. “But why does he need to be home for that?”

“If something should befall King—and may the Saints preserve him,” Oriana adds, although none of us are particularly pious, “there will be a state funeral and a coronation that follows. The entire family will need to be in attendance for both.”

“But he brought a friend.”

She gives me a sharp look. “Princes have some say in these things.”

Even a last-born son like Prince Cardan. I frown, but sip at my soup.

“_If_ King Eldred dies, then who gets the crown?” Taryn interjects, asking the right questions. “Is it Prince Balekin?”

“In all likelihood, it will be Prince Dain,” Madoc says.

We both know Prince Dain, vaguely. He sits on the Grisha Triumvirate with Madoc, the representative of the Etherealki. We’ve respectfully bid him hello at court events, and he, like Madoc, is in and out of the main hall where all the Grisha dine, but we haven’t had much contact with him. His sister, Elowyn, represents the Fabrikators, even though her personal preference is for works of art rather than war or industry.

The king has six children in total, and _four_ are Grisha—an absurd wealth, some would say, of both children and Grisha. The royal line has historically churned out a couple here and there, and most have sat on the Triumvirate. No one seems to know what to do with four. But it seems to have worked out. Vivi’s friend Princess Rhyia appears to have no interest in the throne and is currently about as far away from it as one can get. Very little is expected from Prince Cardan, as the youngest.

“Prince Dain?” Taryn repeats, just as I say, “But Prince Balekin was born first.”

“But not of…” Oriana purses her lips, trying to figure out a way to explain this that’s appropriate for Oak. “Even though the King acknowledges all of his children, Prince Dain and Princess Caelia are the ones born of a legitimate marriage.”

If Vivi were here, I know she’d say something about how foolish it is for Eldred to do that, that it will only foster infighting. Even his illegitimate heirs have been bestowed with titles and wealth. But Vivi is not here, and I don’t volunteer it in her stead. For all I know, Eldred could have wanted infighting among his children. It seems like one way to ensure the strongest sits on the throne.

“A Grisha king,” Taryn muses. “There’s never been one of those before.”

“For a reason,” I add, because Vivi would say this, too, and I think it needs saying. I am not opposed to that in principle—a lot of the Grisha are okay, especially the adult ones, too old for student cliques—but conventional wisdom has it that the common people would never accept such a thing. Not to mention the various lords, who are mostly not Grisha themselves. They might rather see Prince Balekin on the throne, illegitimate son or no.

“Regardless, it is time for a new king,” Madoc says, looking out at us. “Eldred’s reign has been long, but in the last few years he’s grown too lenient with our neighbors to the north and with malcontented factions on our own soil. A younger ruler may take more initiative.”

“So the cold war would become a true war?” I ask. I want to show that I am keeping up. Tensions have been brewing between Fjerda and Ravka—and to a lesser extent, Shu Han to the south—longer than I have been alive, every country trying to one-up the other with new aircraft, new chemical weaponry. “How would that be better?”

“There would be a clear victor, not these years of mounting uncertainty. It is past time someone made a move.”

“The strength of the Second Army is unparalleled, to be sure, but war would put you away from home,” Oriana murmurs. “Your family would rather keep you close. Oak, dear, use your spoon.”

Oak, who in his whimsical childish way had been trying to drink from the bowl, picks up his spoon, but taps it annoyingly against the china. He misses Vivi. She always stood in proud defiance of Oriana’s fussing, happy to tease and poke him.

Taryn kicks me under the table.

“What?” I mouth.

“Ask him,” she mouths back.

“Girls?” Madoc asks.

I groan. The worst thing is that I know Taryn is trying to help. Madoc has the power to accept or deny my request to be an _oprichnik_ on his own, but I had been steeling myself to ask him after dinner, alone. Now Oriana and Oak are both blinking at me. Taryn nudges me again with her foot.

For better or for worse, I draw a breath. “I was thinking, if it’s all the same, that I’m ready to join the guard.”

“An early graduation?”

I nod.

He gives me a considering look. “Is that what you want?”

“Yes, it is,” I say. If I’m an _oprichnik_ I’ll be able to stay at the Little Palace, and I’ll have real status. Prince Cardan might still look sideways at me, but no one else would dare, and that protection would likely extend to Taryn, too. The _oprichniki_ are formidable soldiers. They’re the best of the _otkazats’ya_, as lethal as any Grisha, and they command respect. “I don’t need to finish out the year. What more could I learn than I haven’t already?”

“This has nothing to do with experience,” he says, and a weight settles in the pit of my stomach. I had thought he would be impressed with me for showing initiative. I didn’t think he would say _no_. “You’re no soldier.”

“I could be,” I insist. “I’d be a good soldier. I’m the best marksman in our year.”

“But would you be content to follow orders? Willing to take lives?”

“What’s all this been _for_ otherwise?” I ask, my voice rising against what seems like his inevitable refusal. “Why raise us alongside the Grisha if you don’t want us to spend the rest of our lives among them? We know their strengths and weaknesses better than anyone, and that means how to protect them.”

Madoc’s eyes remain focused on me, and although it’s tempting to flinch away from the intensity of his stare, I hold it. “You’re not ready yet,” he says at last. “We’ll speak of this again after the term is over.”

My heart sinks. Three months, but it seems like a lifetime. Three months, and who knows how long Cardan will be here, sneering at me as I sit on the outside and watch the Grisha, longing for something that I will not know. For _real_ purpose.

Then again he would probably sneer at me if I were one of the guard, too. I don’t think anything would stop him sneering.

“Don’t look so downcast, Jude,” Madoc says. “You have always excelled at your lessons.”

It’s a rare compliment, and it happens to be true, but it’s a very small comfort indeed. I am silent as a servant removes my empty bowl and sets a dish of baked cod down in front of me.

“This is a time of change,” he continues, looking at all of us. “You may find that your dreams change with it. Nothing is certain but uncertainty. But I am taking steps to secure our futures.” He nods at me. “You’ll understand in good time. Have patience.”

“Can we eat now?” Oak asks, short and squirming in his high-backed chair.

We do. There is no more talk of dreams.

* * *

It’s too easy for Grisha to use their powers as a crutch, which is why a significant amount of these advanced lessons—more than one would think—are devoted to other skills useful in battle. Locke is a decent shot. Nicasia, with her long, coltish legs, can run a mile faster than anyone else in our class, when she feels so inclined.

Taryn and I can’t rely on powers at all. We can only rely on our bodies, and our wits, and our skills. Which is why, when it comes to physical combat and marksmanship, I train harder than anyone else in our year. Even without Madoc’s early training I would have been, at the very least, good. With it, I am exceptional. These are the lessons I look forward to the most.

When we arrive at the training rooms for our pre-lunch sparring session, Prince Cardan is there once again. He lounges against the wall, in conversation with Locke and Valerian. He’s wearing his _kefta_ today. I guess he’s done showing off all his shiny medals.

Something has changed. We are no longer beneath his notice. His dark eyes catch on us the moment we walk in.

“I see you haven’t been expelled for your deficiencies yet,” he calls over. “What a shame.”

“Aren’t you a little old to be hanging around a school?” I retort. Taryn grabs at my arm, but I shake her off. Ordinarily, I would join her in taking the high road, but after last night I feel daring. “Surely a prince of Ravka has better things to do with his time.”

An awful grin splits his handsome face. “Than observe the very source of our nation’s greatest strength? Never.”

“It’s too bad a couple of _otkazat’sya_ had to come in and spoil the view,” Valerian adds, although the way he looks Taryn over raises my hackles.

Locke just watches. He seems to be waiting to see what we will do.

Cardan sighs. “I think I may petition the Triumvirate on your behalf, to release you from the school. I’d be doing you a courtesy, you know.”

My hands ball into fists at my side. Last night, all I had wanted was to graduate early, but the knowledge that my leaving school would delight him makes me determined to take root where I have been planted. I feel hot all over.

“We’re fine as we are, _moi tsarevich_,” Taryn says, bowing her head. “But we appreciate the concern.”

“My only concern is for the morale of the other students,” he says, with an elegant sweep of his arm. “How must your class feel, knowing they have been so diluted?” With a moment’s consideration of Taryn, he adds, “Although at least one of you has learned manners.”

“I don’t think you know what manners look like,” I snap, and then, with honeyed venom, I add, “_tsarevich_.”

Cardan momentarily looks as though I have slapped him, then a grin slowly spreads across his face. “Such high words from a low-born girl. Are your delusions of grandeur borne of desperation or insanity?”

I open my mouth for a retort when Taryn yanks my arm and leads me away from them. “What are you doing?” she hisses. “Stop making it worse!”

“He was the one who spoke to me.”

“Well, what are you thinking, talking back?”

I don’t know what I am thinking. But when I glance back over my shoulder and see Cardan’s dark eyes watching us, I say, “I’m thinking it’s not worth it to be nice.”

Taryn purses her lips, reminding me of Oriana.

“Seriously,” I continue, as if I might be able to persuade her, “when has it ever gotten us anywhere?”

“We’re not face-down in the dirt,” Taryn points out. “That’s somewhere.”

I shake my head, but don’t argue back. How am I supposed to explain to her that my lungs burn anyway, even though I’m not breathing in soil?

She lowers her voice. “Jude, his father is dying.”

I glance over at Cardan. He is watching us still. He doesn’t seem too broken up about it. “That doesn’t give him the right to take it out on us.”

“He’s a prince,” Taryn reminds me. “He has the right to do whatever he wants.”

I huff, but I can’t argue with her. After all, she’s not wrong.

The other Grisha arrive in groups of two and three. Nicasia breaks away from the girls she’s gossiping with to stand with Cardan, although she doesn’t take Locke’s arm like she normally would. Before I have time to wonder what that might mean, our instructor arrives, and we all snap to attention.

Madoc is with him.

He does this sometimes, quietly come to combat classes to observe his future soldiers. I should have expected him today, since he so recently returned from the front. I stiffen anyway, still stung from last night’s refusal.

But maybe if I’m good enough, I can change his mind.

He paces down the line, silently studying us, looking for crooked _keftas_ or unpolished boots or lax postures. And then he reaches the end, where Cardan and Valerian lean against the wall.

“Prince Cardan,” he says, by way of greeting, ignoring Valerian entirely. “I see you’ve come to join your peers for practice.”

“Practice? That sounds like work.” Cardan tilts his head back, almost defiant. “I thought I would watch.”

Normally there would be chortling at his backtalk. Now, there is only silence.

“Your Highness,” Madoc says. His voice is even, almost cold. It makes me bristle. Nothing good follows in the wake of that tone. “Today this room is my domain. I’ll ask you to participate or stop distracting your fellows and return to the palace.”

Cardan’s eyes narrow. “You wouldn’t make my siblings do this.”

“I would.” Madoc’s eyes flick over Cardan, taking in his tousled hair, his slightly rumpled _kefta_. “But your brothers and sisters are seasoned fighters. You have not yet proven your mettle.”

Cardan blanches. Madoc has never shown the prince special treatment.

“Fine,” he says, nostrils flaring. “I’ll fight if you can find me a challenger.”

Everyone in my class glances at each other, except Nicasia, who pushes her braid over her shoulder, and Locke, whose interest shines through a casual veneer of boredom. My shoulders square, and I pick up my head.

Taryn shakes her head at me.

I step forward. “I’ll spar with him.”

There is an uneasy murmur. Cardan raises both eyebrows. Even Madoc looks a little surprised, but not unimpressed. “Very well,” he says. “Put your padding on, all of you, and pair off.”

He’s never shown us special treatment, either.

A few minutes later, we have all removed our jackets and _keftas_, trading them for pads and helmets. Taryn pairs off with Locke, and I wonder if he’ll go easy on her since he knows she was sick, then wonder at how I am sparing him an almost charitable thought. I claim an area on the mats. Cardan takes his time buckling on his helmet, but, with no other recourse, finally comes out to meet me.

I size up my opponent. Cardan has more than half a head on me, and he is almost all lean muscle—how, I’ve no idea, because as far as I can tell he spends most of his time sneering and lounging and drinking. But I have seen him spar before, and catalogue what I do know. His form is mediocre and I have no doubt that I am faster than him. All of his previous sparring partners, upon being paired with him, threw their matches with little resistance.

He is not used to losing. He won’t expect it.

Good.

I plant my feet. When the whistle blows, I bend my knees, grounding my stance and making myself an even smaller target. Cardan does a poor imitation of what I’m doing.

For a few seconds we stand there, just looking at each other.

“Well?” he asks.

I raise my eyebrows and take a few steps to the right. He moves too.

“Do you still need a lesson in manners?” he asks as we circle each other. “Ladies first.”

“If you insist,” I say.

I feint a punch for his helmet, which he clumsily tries to block and dodge at once. And while he’s distracting himself, I dart past him and drive an elbow into his side. If we weren’t wearing padding, I’d have hit a kidney. As it is, he’ll still get the wind knocked out of him.

His little _oof_ of surprise is the best thing I‘ve heard all week.

Before he has the chance to recover, I hook my foot around his ankle and he falls forward onto the mat. The helmet that he spent so long fiddling with falls off and rolls a few feet away.

When he looks up at me, his eyes blaze with hatred.

I step away from him, planning on giving him a second to retrieve his helmet, but he reaches out and grabs my leg, and I lose my balance and fall hard onto my back.

Fine. If a dirty fight is what he wants, it’s what he’ll get.

Pinning me is the only way Cardan could win this, so I let him come to me. Just as he begins to block out the light above our heads, I push up from the mat, throw a leg over his side, and leverage my weight to knock him flat onto his back. I come up straddling his chest, my knees pinning one of his arms to the mat. He blinks at me, stunned and furious.

I press my forearm against his neck, just hard enough to make him aware of the unfortunate position he’s in. I can’t outright kill him, even if it’s the only thing that would make him go away forever. “Tap out.”

Cardan smirks, and does nothing.

I bear down harder. “You lose. Tap out.”

He gasps, red-faced, and I feel a thrill of satisfaction. But he doesn’t tap out. I frown and apply a little more pressure, and then his free hand touches my leg and sends a jolt of electricity through me. In my shock, I release him and scramble away. Cardan sits up, massaging blood back into his throat and scowling.

My leg stings. When I turn my head, I see that the fabric of my trousers has been singed away. A shiny pink burn in the shape of a palm print marks my calf where he’d gripped me.

“Are you crazy?” I shout, yanking off my own helmet.

“I was beginning to black out.”

“Whose fault is that? You wouldn’t tap out!”

Adrenaline courses brightly through my veins. The air is heavy with the same smell of ozone that lingers after thunderstorms. The hair on my arms is standing up.

I barely feel the burn.

“What is this?” Madoc asks. The rest of the training room has gone silent.

“He was Summoning in the training room,” I say.

“Jude was trying to kill me,” he says.

I am outraged. How can he shift the blame to me when this is about what he did? I snarl, “If I was trying to kill you, you’d be dead.”

“Jude,” says Madoc. A warning. His keen, golden-brown eyes take in the burn on my leg, Cardan rubbing his neck, and his mouth forms a stern line. “Prince Cardan, Summoning is forbidden in these rooms. Your brother will hear of this.”

“I’m sure he will.”

I push up to my knees, then stand, shakily but without help. Cardan remains on the mat, playing victim.

“Have a Healer tend to that burn,” Madoc tells me.

“I’m fine,” I insist.

“That’s an order, not a request.”

Flushed with embarrassment, I bow my head. This was not the demonstration I wanted. His words from dinner echo in my mind: _but would you be content to follow orders?_

Madoc’s face is stony. “Escort Jude to the infirmary,” he says to Cardan. “And be grateful that it’s not within my power to prescribe a harsher punishment.”

Cardan glowers at the command, but there are no smart remarks now. Even he knows Madoc is not to be crossed. He would never have dared what he did if he couldn’t pin some of the blame on me.

“General,” he replies, inclining his head.

Then, without bothering to hide his disgust, he stands and reluctantly offers me an arm.

I push it away and stalk out of the training rooms.

* * *

When Cardan catches up to me on the lawn, easily overtaking me with his long strides, we are already out of earshot of the training rooms. I’m not exactly in the mood to talk to him, but he seems to be in the mood to gloat.

“I hope you’ve learned your lesson,” he says.

“What lesson?” I ask. “Are we still on manners?”

He scoffs. “No matter how good you are,” he says, “you’ll never be better than us.”

“I pinned you.”

“I got you anyway.”

“I got you first.” I glare at him, then look down at the burn. In truth, it hurts quite a bit. My calf throbs whenever I put my weight on that leg, and it’s all I can do not to limp in front of him. But he can’t know any of that. “And it’s not that bad.”

“If it wasn’t so bad, you would have stayed and fought.”

“Or maybe I don’t want an imprint of your hand on my skin for the rest of my life.”

He chuckles. “Some people would consider that an honor.”

I cast my eyes skyward. “Well, I’m not ‘some people,’ am I? I’m a talentless peasant.”

“That doesn’t mean you need to flaunt your lack of taste.”

“If you’re a taste,” I retort, grimacing, “I don’t want to acquire you.”

Cardan snorts.

I’m not sure why Madoc sent him to the infirmary with me, except as some punitive medicine for us both, until I see the bruise rising on his neck. There might be one on his torso, too. I elbowed him pretty hard.

And though he had deserved it, though if he has been trying he wouldn’t have been hit, though that was the point of the exercise, I am a little surprised by my own capacity for violence.

I had been angry. I am angry still.

“Why don’t you just quit?” Cardan asks bitterly. “Make it easy on yourself.”

“The second I decide to make it easy on myself, you win. Everyone else wins.” I limp a little longer, then, unable to stop myself, I blurt out, “What do you have against me, anyway?”

He looks at me like he’s surprised I don’t already know. “You and your sister don’t belong here,” he says. “You don’t know your place. You take things that aren’t yours, and you don’t know when to give up.”

I stare at him. “You really believe that.”

He shrugs one dismissive shoulder.

“Everything I have, I’ve worked for,” I snap. “Every inch I’ve gained on you, on any of you, I’ve earned. You can’t say that.”

Cardan just snorts and picks up the pace so I can’t keep up with him, at least not with my injured leg. Only after he’s disappeared into the infirmary do I realize this is the longest conversation we have ever had.

I reach the infirmary a minute or two after him and am immediately whisked to a cot. One of the Healers is already gently tending to the bruise on Cardan’s neck. It’s really more of an elementary Tailoring job, suitable for a junior Healer, and she is young, maybe only a couple of years older than he is. He offers her a brilliant smile as thanks, and her blush curdles my stomach.

I hate the reminder that so many people don’t know what he really is. I hate how the Healer laughs at his jokes the same way everyone in class does. I hate how many people adore him in spite of his awfulness.

I hate him so much that I can hardly breathe.

My own attendant is not as pliant as his. She is an older, dour-looking Healer with streaks in her hair, her forehead lined with concentration as she soothes the burn on my leg. I wince and close my eyes as the burn prickles and itches its way through weeks of healing within minutes, but I don’t dare do more than that. Because whenever Cardan isn’t flirting with his Healer, he is looking at me with those night-dark eyes, waiting for me to slip.

Finally it’s done, and I shake out my leg while enduring a short lecture on provoking temperamental Summoners, and the dangers of electrical burns, and how lucky I am that there was no internal damage. Of course, I am the one scolded, and not the person who decided to shock me. I listen in silence, nodding at the appropriate times, because whatever I say or do will be taken back to Madoc.

The Healer takes her sweet time with Cardan, but he, too, is finally finished just as I am free of my scolding. I have to pass him to leave the room. When I am nearly safe, he whispers sharply, “Give up,” like he’s trying to plant the thought in my head, give it roots.

“No.” And, unwilling to allow him the parting shot, I draw myself up. I remember my dream of joining the _oprichniki_, however distant it may now feel, and say, “And someday you’ll be glad I never gave up. Because maybe I’ll be the only person watching your back, protecting you from the Shu or the Fjerdans or whoever else wants to snap a spoiled Grisha prince’s neck. And you’ll have to thank me for it.”

His eyes flash. “I very much doubt that,” he says.

I shrug. “You’re right. Because I’d let you rot, and you’d deserve it.”

And while he is still gawping at me, I slip past him.

My mouth tightens into a smile when I don’t hear a retort.

For once, the last word is mine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Busy day for me so notes on Grisha things will come later (although I think we're mostly covered for this chapter).
> 
> Graphics on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/destiniesfic/status/1186310077734539265)/[Tumblr](https://destiniesfic.tumblr.com/post/188495710683/).


	6. Chapter 5

There are a few things I should have already said that I haven’t yet, things specific to my experience that you wouldn’t know. After all, you probably know about the Grisha. Maybe you’re superstitious and believe that they’re unnatural, which isn’t true. Maybe you know them as those gifted in the Small Science, as some people are gifted at singing, or others are gifted at solving equations, and some have no talent for either. There’s nothing unnatural about gifts, although there’s nothing fair about them either.

But these things aren’t about Grisha. They’re about me. I have told myself that I’ve left them out so far because I haven’t found a good place to mention them, but the truth is that I don’t even like to think about them. Still, they might explain why I am so defensive. Why I am afraid. And how, gradually, anger has seeped into the places where fear’s cracked open.

Here are three stories that I should have told you before, but didn’t:

  1. When I was ten, a junior Fabrikator nearly cut off the top of my finger. I had been sneaking into the workshops because the smell of copper and steel reminded me of my father. I’d crouch under the tables and watch the Materialki working, and Anton, the youngest person in the workshops and often tasked with drudgery, grew tired of dragging me from my hiding spots and kicking me out.  
  
One night it was very late, and we were the only two people in the workshop, and he was frustrated to find me under yet another table. He thought I didn’t understand how dangerous it was to be there, so he demanded that I hold out my hand, and I did. Anton had been working on a beautiful Grisha steel knife with real gold inlay decorating the handle in the shape of dancing leaves. I think he only meant for it to be a little cut—just a warning—but I squirmed. We both had forgotten how sharp the knife was and how small children’s hands are. The blade bit so deeply that I could see the blanched white of my bone.  
  
They were able to heal it in the infirmary, so all I have is a raised scar just above the line of my first knuckle. But I never snuck into the Materialki workshops again, and I never told anyone what happened, until now, when I am telling you.  

  2. When I was thirteen, a group of Heartrender boys cornered me out by the paddock. I had wanted a closer look at the horses and wandered far from adult eyes. They were all seventeen, far enough ahead of me in school that I didn’t know their names.  
  
They knew me, though. They knew me by my jacket, knew me as _otkazat’sya_. They knew I didn’t have any power to fight back. One of them paralyzed me while the others jeered at how scared I was. I tried to scream but my jaw was clamped shut, tried to run but my muscles wouldn’t obey. Only my eyes could move, and the sight of them rolling about made the boys laugh. I was old enough to understand just how bad things could get for a girl alone.  
  
I don’t know how long they held me like that. It could have been minutes or an hour. But for whatever reason, maybe for fear of Madoc, they only taunted me and set me free. Before they did, though, they told me not to tattle or they would do worse. I believed them. Once released, I nearly fell face-first into the mud before sprinting back to the Little Palace as fast as my legs could carry me. Oriana scolded me for being late to dinner and I was too frightened and ashamed of my own weakness to offer any excuse.  
  
Those boys all graduated that spring. A few months later, Madoc deemed me ready for my own blade of Grisha steel. I kept it under my pillow while I slept, and still do to this day. It would do me little good if someone froze me in my sleep, but I feel better having it. I know how deeply it can cut.  

  3. When I was fifteen and Oak was five, he burned off half my hair. He didn’t mean to do it. He started showing evidence of his powers when he was four or so, but Oriana didn’t want him to go to school yet, so he had tutors. Oak showed a natural affinity for manipulating air pressure, a born Squaller, and at one time that was all he would be. Now we know that if you start training Grisha young enough, they don’t necessarily have to choose one discipline or another and might master two or even three. Oak had just started experimenting with fire.  
  
I sat at the long wooden table where we gather for dinners, composing an essay on the Squaller technique for creating acoustic anomalies pioneered by Zoya Nazyalensky during the Civil War. There were lit candles on the tables, and Oak was flapping his hands and making the flames flicker. Good practice. No one thought him capable of more than that until the flames surged up out of his control and leapt toward me.  
  
The worst thing was the smell, followed by Oriana’s shrieking as she doused me with an entire serving pitcher of water. I was shaken but unharmed, and I was lucky; the back of my shirt was scorched and I was short half my hair. Oak, of course, thought this was the funniest thing he had ever seen and nearly fell off his chair giggling. He didn’t understand why everyone was so upset or that I could have been badly hurt. He was just a child. I bore it and cropped my hair above my shoulders. It only grew back this year.

I put off telling these stories because I don't like being reminded of how fragile I am and how easily I can be hurt. How even if I practice fighting and shooting every day, even if I can outsmart them and write better essays, even if I learn as much of their history and techniques as I can, I will never be one of them.

Taryn likes the story of Alina Starkov because the impossible became possible for her. And I think Taryn is wrong about why I don’t like it like she does. It’s not that I don’t like romance. I just don’t want to allow myself false hope. If I hope, if I want, if I allow myself to want, I will only want. I will become a creature of want. I will lose myself to wanting.

Maybe this explains what I do next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Graphic on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/destiniesfic/status/1187451633732485120)/[Tumblr](https://destiniesfic.tumblr.com/post/188567013638/the-shadow-prince-a-folk-of-the-airgrishaverse).


	7. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His voice is still friendly when he asks, “Should we talk about how you almost killed the youngest prince today?”

Taryn and I are walking together when I lose her.

We were going to part ways soon enough. The Grisha are doing some tests this morning, and since I have never been squeamish I want to watch the Corporalki. Taryn opted to observe the Fabrikators instead. Those workshops sit on the same hall, so we started down our paths together, each lost to our own thoughts, until I look up and she isn’t there. One moment she is beside me, and the next she’s gone.

“Taryn?” I ask. But she is nowhere to be found.

I frown. I’m not worried about Taryn losing herself in the Little Palace, but it’s not like her to disappear without a word, and I am pretty sure she didn’t run ahead of me. I backtrack, wondering where I could have misplaced her.

When I turn the corner, I find her standing beside Cardan in the shadows, well away from the cold light shining through the window. I didn’t even see him pull her aside. Then again, he would have only had to ask, and Taryn would have gone no matter what. I know she thinks if we go along with what they want, what he wants, they’ll go back to leaving us alone. She doesn’t know it’s too late for that.

Her face is red, her cheeks wet with tears.

I am red too, but my red devours me, leaving something cold and dark and hollow in its wake.

I don’t remember dropping my bookbag, but I do. Then I am across the hall, shoving Cardan away from her. His back collides with the wall. His eyes are coal-black, saucer-large.

“Don’t you dare speak to her,” I say. Somehow I am not shouting. I am still burning inside, but my voice is ice cold. My hand is fisted in the front of his _kefta_.

“Jude, leave it alone,” Taryn says, grabbing my other hand and trying to pull me off of him.

I ignore her, emboldened by a fresh surge of rage that runs through me like an electric current. “Whatever problem you have is with me, not Taryn. Don’t go near her.”

Cardan seems stunned for a moment, and then he blinks and recovers, his full mouth curling into a familiar sneer. “You don’t know the first thing about—”

Whatever he was going to say is cut off by a choked, sputtering cough, and then he mostly looks confused. It takes me a second to remember why. Grisha don’t get sick. Maybe he hasn’t coughed for so long that he’s forgotten what it’s like.

He presses his lips together and tries again. “Don’t speak to what you don’t—”

Another cough, this one scarier-sounding. He goes pale.

I don’t know what’s gotten into him. I feel better than I have in ages.

“What’s going on?” Taryn asks, but her voice sounds very far away, like I am hearing it from underwater, from outside of a dream. Cardan’s breath comes short. Something falls to the floor, maybe books.

Then a beringed hand falls on Cardan’s shoulder, and the spell is broken. The rings, flashing with reflected window light, swim into focus first. One is a signet ring bearing the Ravkan double eagle. With growing dread, I turn my head toward the person who has interrupted us.

“Brother,” says Prince Dain, but he is looking at me.

My heart stutters to a halt. Any sense of triumph quickly vanishes.

Cardan barely reacts to Dain’s touch. He stares at me with eyes still wide, his breathing still harsh and shallow. I release his _kefta_ and step back from him. The apology I hold in my mouth feels oily on my tongue.

“We were just talking, _moi tsarevich_,” Taryn says quickly, inclining her head. Somehow she always knows the right thing to say.

“Is that so?” Dain asks. “It seemed like a heated conversation.”

He doesn’t sound angry, but it’s difficult to tell. Although I have seen Dain talking to Madoc from afar more times than I can count, I don’t know him well, aside from knowing that he is probably going to be King. He doesn’t resemble Cardan much, although their _kefta_ are the same—blue and silver.

Finally shaking himself awake, Cardan glances at Dain’s hand on his shoulder. When he looks up again, I nearly recoil at the hatred in his eyes.

“Just talking,” he echoes. “Jude was educating me on the finer points of offensive strategy.”

“Jude?” Dain asks.

I wet my lips with my tongue. The last thing I need is for Madoc to hear that I have been fighting with one of the princes. “Your brother needed further instruction,” I say. I don’t know if that’s okay to say to Prince Dain. I am strangely lightheaded.

Cardan wipes his mouth and nose on the sleeve of his _kefta_, then stares at the embroidery like he’s never noticed it before.

Dain smiles. “Doubtless he did,” he says mildly. “I’m glad to find everyone in agreement. Don’t let me delay you further. You have classes to attend.” He takes his hand from Cardan’s shoulder. “And brother, I’m sure there are other girls for you to bother at the Grand Palace.”

Cardan scowls. Taryn and I, seeing our chance, bob our best curtsies and flee.

Later, after our silent walk to the workshops and hours of anatomy study that I barely process, I try to get out of Taryn what Cardan said to her. She won’t give it up. She only promises that it had nothing to do with me.

I’m not sure I believe her. Then again, I can’t quite believe we left that conversation with no consequences, either. So after we are tired of talking in circles, we lapse into silence and return to what we know, doing our homework by the fire in her room, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

* * *

When the knock comes on my door, I have been lying in bed with my eyes closed for hours, trying to sleep and failing. I keep thinking of Taryn and her tears, Cardan’s shocked, white face, Prince Dain’s easy smile.

It’s a soft knock. Just three quick raps. “Miss Duarte,” a woman calls, “you’ve been summoned to the war room.”

I glance out the window. The moon is high, shiny as a newly-minted coin. It’s really late. Madoc must want something important.

“Just a second,” I call back. I go to my wardrobe and pull some soft leggings on under my nightdress, then throw a robe on over everything and tie it loosely at my waist. I don’t want to keep him waiting, not if this is urgent enough to justify waking me at this hour.

I know Prince Dain’s told him what happened with Cardan.

When I open the door, a woman is waiting for me, wearing the uniform of a palace messenger. I don’t recognize her, and I feel like I’d remember her if I’d seen her before. Her hair is too white for her young age.

“Follow me,” she says.

“I know the way.”

“I’ve been told to accompany you.”

I frown. Is Madoc afraid I’m going to bolt? Where would I go?

But I just say, “All right.”

We move through the halls, which are darkened but never dark, together. Her footfalls are soft on the floor ahead of me, nearly silent. The Little Palace sleeps around us, quiet but still alive. I am convinced that if I listened hard enough, I could hear it breathing.

There are no watchful eyes as we cross the main hall. How late is it? Usually even after sundown there are Grisha here, gathered to chat or play chess or drink _kvas_. I am beginning to wonder whether I slept after all, in fits and starts. We scurry on, little mice in a big maze. She opens the double doors at the end for me, and I step through.

I make my way down the hall and enter the war room. The lamps are low, the room almost empty. It is not Madoc who awaits me at the end of the long table, but Prince Dain. I look around, thinking there is some mistake.

The messenger closes the door at my back. It is the only door.

Oriana would have a heart attack. I’m not dressed for talking to a prince, much less the crown prince. Still, I do what I can and sink into a low curtsy that even she couldn’t find fault with.

I thought before that Dain and Cardan do not look alike, and I think it again now. Dain is handsome too, of course, but he is much fairer than Cardan, his hair golden like his father’s, his eyes grey. His face holds no hint of malice. His seat on the Triumvirate, the Etherealki seat, had first been occupied by Zoya Nazyalensky, a legendarily powerful Grisha who left big shoes to fill. General Nazyalensky had been succeeded by Princess Alya Lantsov, and the seat mostly passed down through the royal line, barring a span of years just before Dain had taken it. I know because I had to memorize the names of every Triumvirate member for school when I was twelve.

I wonder what will become of his seat when he becomes King. Maybe he’ll pass it on to Rhyia—certainly not Cardan. Or maybe he’ll keep it. That would be a first, but he would be our first Grisha king.

“Rise, Jude Duarte,” he says. I hadn’t expected him to remember my name.

“_Moi tsarevich_,” I reply, and do.

“Surely you know why you’re here.”

I shake my head.

He raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t appear particularly surprised. “Would you like some tea?” he asks.

For the first time, I notice the samovar on the table. My mouth is dry, but I shake my head again before remembering to speak. “No, thank you.”

“I could send for some _kvas_ if you prefer. Or perhaps wine?”

I try to think over my pulse pounding in my ears. “I don’t think Madoc would want me drinking so late.”

Dain laughs at that. “He doesn’t need to know.”

That tells me something. The truth is, Madoc wouldn’t care, but Dain doesn’t need to know that. I sacrificed a little bit of adult standing and sounded childish, but I have learned that Madoc doesn’t know we are here, and if I keep confidence, he won’t. Dain waited until everyone was asleep for a reason. This meeting is secret, or meant to be.

I shake my head once more. “That’s very generous, but I’m fine.”

He nods and pours some tea for himself. It is strange to see a prince pour himself tea. His voice is still friendly when he asks, “Should we talk about how you almost killed the youngest prince today?”

My eyes widen. “What—no,” I say. “Prince Cardan and I were just having a conversation.”

“Is that right?”

“We were arguing,” I amend, hoping the truth will save me. “But that was all.”

“You want me to believe you didn’t know what you were doing?”

Fear shoots down my spine like lightning. My heart beats against my chest like a bird trying to escape its cage. “I just pushed him. Neither of us were armed. We were only talking.”

Although of course it wouldn’t matter if Cardan were armed; he’s a weapon regardless of whether or not he’s holding one. I am too, at this point. I think of our scuffle in the sparring room, of the burn on my leg, healed without a trace. Sometimes I can still feel the shock travel through me. I think back on our encounter today, and conclude that Dain believes I had a hand on Cardan’s throat.

The corners of Dain’s mouth turn down. “You don’t have to protect your father,” he says gently.

That’s not what I was expecting to hear.

“I don’t understand,” I say.

He leans forward in his chair, hands pressed together, his tea untouched. “Forgive me if I find it difficult to believe that you’ve lived this long in the house of Ravka’s most prominent Heartrender without knowing you were one yourself.”

The air is gone from my lungs as though someone has taken them and squeezed, hard. Somehow, I speak. “That’s impossible.”

“Why has Madoc been hiding you?”

“I—no. This is crazy—pardon me, _moi tsarevich_.” I draw a breath, collecting myself. “If this is true, it was hidden from me also.”

A small crease forms between Dain’s brows. “I am not sure what you were doing to Cardan today, but I know that I felt it as a brief spell of weakness, as did everyone else in that hall. One of the Tailors passing by even fell to her knees and dropped her kit. Only you and your sister seemed unaffected—Jude,” he says, when he sees me shaking my head again. “You doubt my account?”

“Well, yes,” I say, puzzled. It seems like the wrong answer, but I’m not sure what else I’m expected to say. “Maybe an experiment went wrong in the workshops. We were nearby.”

“I have done my due diligence. Nothing irregular was recorded that day. The only other explanation I can conceive of is that a Heartrender assassin broke into the heavily guarded grounds of the Little Palace and targeted the youngest and most useless of the royal children in so sloppy a manner as to alert everyone else in the area. Does that seem likely to you?”

“I just—” My words dry up. I press my lips together and try again. “I don’t see how this is possible.”

He seems to decide my confusion is genuine. His expression softens. “Have a seat, Jude,” he says.

I sit in the nearest chair. I barely have a choice. My legs are shaking. “It’s not me.”

“It might be your sister, Taryn,” Dain concedes. “But I began with you because you’re the one with the grudge. No, don’t deny it. Your father told me about the incident the other day.”

I rub the scar on my ring finger. It couldn’t be Taryn. Could it? I can only think that if it were Taryn, she wouldn’t spend so long gazing wistfully at displays of Etherealki power or be so fascinated by Fabrikator craft. I think she’d hold her head a little higher, bolstered by her gift.

Or maybe that’s just what I would do.

“Am I in trouble?” I ask.

“No. Cardan is unharmed, although I doubt many people would have cared if some ill fate had befallen him.” I have sometimes thought the same thing, but I am shocked to hear the words from Prince Dain’s mouth. He finally sips at his now cool tea, as though he has said nothing out of the ordinary. “But if I hadn’t broken your concentration, you could have killed him.”

I am unable to make sense of all of this. “I still don’t think it was me,” I say. “Either of us. We were tested when we arrived at the Little Palace.”

I am certain of this because the image of Taryn screaming and reaching for me as she was carried away has never left my mind. They had to test us separately, and we clutched each other’s hands so tightly that the examiners had to pull us apart. All that effort for nothing. In the end, we had no gifts, no special talents. We just were.

Or so I thought.

“Yes,” says Dain. “You were seven. But such tests have proven… unreliable.” He presses his lips together. “As with Alina Starkov, Grisha power sometimes demands a catalyst to truly awaken.”

“But she was an edge case,” I protest. “That was the first anyone heard of something like that happening, and it hasn’t happened again.”

Prince Dain smiles, a friendly smile that relaxes me a little. “I see you’ve done your homework.”

I don’t bother telling him that homework is really all I _can_ do to keep up with my peers. I just say, “Taryn loves that story.”

“Many people do.”

He pauses. My mind grasps for the only thing that makes sense, the story’s next chapter. “Are you going to have me tested again?”

Dain inclines his head at me, then nods toward a corner of the room, which shimmers oddly in response. When the shimmering falls away, a scarred man steps forward.

I gasp, although I silently chide myself immediately after. Either the man is a Sun Summoner—in spite of his lack of _kefta_—or there is another nearby to bend the light around him and conceal his presence. Without knowing what to look for, that there _was_ something to look for, I couldn’t have possibly detected him.

“My turn?” the man asks Dain, grinning. He has a lovely voice which is at odds with his rough appearance; someone, at some point, broke his nose in several places. Dain nods again, and the man steps around the table.

“Emotional disruptions can hinder Grisha power,” Dain explains. “As can attachments. You may have been holding yourself back for your sister’s sake. Let’s see how you perform without her near.”

“What should I do?” I ask.

“Just put your hand out,” the new man says. When I hesitate, he demonstrates for me, holding his hand before him, palm down.

I remind myself that I am not in the Fabrikator workshops. Warily, I obey.

The man wraps his bare hand around my wrist, as I knew he would. He must be a living amplifier, like the Grisha examiners who tested me and Taryn the first time. If there’s any power in me, he should be able to draw it out.

For a moment, I stand there feeling foolish, not sure if I am more afraid that something will happen or that nothing will. I have lived my life for so long in the shadows of the Grisha, and while I’ve dreamt of being one of them, I have always known it would never happen. I have never truly _imagined_ it. But what if…

_If you’re in there_, I think, pleading with the silent power that may yet live inside me, _come out_. _I want to know_. And, _please let him be right about me_.

There is a long, long stretch of nothing. Then, gradually, although I cannot believe it, I feel something unfurl within me, stretching toward the man’s touch like a sapling seeking out the sun. It is halting, and hesitant, but it pushes its way up, and suddenly I am not only aware of my own heartbeat, but the man’s and Prince Dain’s, and Princess Elowyn’s sleeping in chambers down the hall, and the beating hearts of the two _oprichniki_ guarding her from her parlor. I can feel their breathing, their blood coursing through their veins. I can even feel old wounds, old scars, a knee smashed to bits—in a fight? an accident?—that never healed quite right.

It is like I have been asleep my whole life and suddenly I am awake to _everything_.

My heart leaps, and the other hearts leap in time with mine.

“That’s enough,” says Prince Dain, who looks a little flushed. Is that my doing? “You’ll wake the Palace.”

I try to pull back into my own body, but whatever is in me doesn’t want to be contained. “I can’t stop it,” I say, and I am panicked, but elated, too.

Dain glances at the man, who releases my wrist. The power retreats. I try to grab at it, but I might as well be trying to catch sand with a sieve. I can’t keep it from fading, just as I can’t stop the heartbroken little cry that falls from my mouth when it’s gone.

“Well,” says the man to Dain, “I’d say you picked the right twin.”

I sink back into my chair, already mourning.

“You have a choice to make,” Prince Dain says to me, and I have to force my head up to listen. “You can go through official channels and begin to make up years of study at the Little Palace. You can endure questions about how you hid your powers and why you have so much difficulty controlling them. Or…” He pauses. “You can work for me.”

I sit up straighter. “For the Crown?”

A smile plays across Dain’s lips again. “I am not the Crown yet,” he says, “and I haven’t forgotten that. There are those who would not see me take my father’s place. I could use a Heartrender on my side, especially one no one knows exists.”

“You want me to keep this a secret.”

“For a little while,” he admits, and I am glad he at least admits it. “Until the throne is secure. But in exchange I will find a workaround for the blockage that has kept you from your power, and you’ll be trained away from prying eyes. Should the time come when you choose to reveal yourself, it will be as a true Grisha, not an anomaly. You’ll be one of us, Jude. I can promise you this, and much more, if you agree to work for me.”

I look down at my bare hands, unable to believe all that has happened in the last fifteen minutes. I am Grisha. _I_ am Grisha. I am not a Fabrikator, like my father who’d made weapons for the crown, but a Heartrender, like the father who raised me.

The power I wield is the one that killed my parents.

My hands close into fists. Maybe Dain is wrong about me. Maybe I subconsciously hid my power away so I could stay with Taryn, so she wouldn’t be alone. Or maybe somewhere within me I understood what I was, and I feared it. I had seen what that power had done to my family and locked it away.

But I had coveted it all the same, and now, through some combination of a prince’s generosity and my own hidden talents, it is being offered to me. Not in the way I would necessarily want it. I don’t want a secret. I want to parade my gifts in front of Cardan so he knows that he was wrong about me. So he knows I _could_ have crushed his heart, and something in me chose not to. Let him think it was only a whim that stayed my hand.

I know Prince Dain is right, though. Going through the Little Palace would mean red tape and protocol. I would be poked and studied. He is promising me training and a fix, and if he wants me as a protector, he’ll need those things as soon as he can get them.

And I need them, too.

I’m ready to not be afraid anymore.

I look up at Prince Dain, the man who will be King, the man who is willing to promise me the impossible. And I say, “I want a _kefta_.”

His smile widens to a grin, teeth gleaming like pearls. “You’ll have one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Graphics on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/destiniesfic/status/1190010429839331328)/[Tumblr](https://destiniesfic.tumblr.com/post/188728837183/the-shadow-prince-a-folk-of-the-airgrishaverse)! I really like this one.


	8. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I updated the tags, but please be aware that there is drowning in this chapter! Proceed with caution if that's something you try to avoid.

The work doesn’t begin immediately. The same messenger who fetched me returns me to my room, and once there I do not sleep a wink. Now that I am alive to the possibility of power it is all I can think about. Not just any power, but _real_ power—power that lives within my cells, that had flooded my veins when the scarred man took hold of my wrist last night.

How is it possible that something like that lived inside me all this time without me knowing? I can’t sneak out to the library this late without drawing attention, so I can only consult the books I have in my room. One of my books on Grisha theory unhelpfully repeats what Dain said, that power blockages are emotional, triggered by a disruptive event or a refusal to acknowledge feelings. They can sometimes come on randomly. They are not uncommon, but they generally last a short while.

What’s happening to me makes no sense. Grisha are strengthened through using their powers; when those powers are suppressed, they are slowly eaten away. Alina Starkov, whose powers didn’t surface until she was seventeen, was drab and sickly before she was discovered. Everyone knows that. But Taryn and I have always been normal, healthy children. We sometimes run fevers in the fall and sneeze in the spring, but that’s about as ill as either of us have ever gotten.

My search for answers leads me nowhere. Nor does trying to call to the power. I sit still, close my eyes, breathe as I was taught, listen as hard as I can, trying to reach to the very depths of me and draw it out. When none of that works, I shamefully resort to silent pleading, and still the power won’t come.

Eventually, I find myself sitting on the floor, surrounded by a scattering of open books. A glance at the bright sunlight bordering my closed curtains tells me that it’s past time to be up and moving. I abandon my studies and dress.

When I open the door to my room, Taryn is there, waiting for me.

“You look—” she begins, and then she stops herself. I glance at myself in the mirror. I am hoping that I will be much changed, my hair glossy and my skin glowing, but I mostly just look like I haven’t slept.

“I’m fine,” I tell her. But I put my bag down so I can wind my hair into a bun, and it will look like I have made some effort at something.

“Class is going to be hell today,” Taryn mutters once I join her in the hall. “Why couldn’t you have kept your hands to yourself?”

I don’t immediately remember what she is talking about. Then it comes back to me: the color drained from Cardan’s face, his _kefta_ in my grip, that soft, stupid mouth of his slack with surprise. “He deserved it.”

“You don’t even know what he said.”

I shoot her a sidelong glance. “Why don’t you tell me so I can make that judgment for myself?”

Taryn shakes her head, weary. “I told you, it has nothing to do with you.”

“Then I’m going to assume he deserved it. He deserved it for a thousand other things, anyway.”

“Fine,” she snaps, rolling her eyes. “Ruin your own life. I’m not going to stop you, but I’m not going to help, either.”

_My life isn’t ruined_, I want to say to her. _My life is only beginning_. But I am well aware that Dain’s offer to me is contingent on keeping quiet for now, so I keep quiet. I don’t want to hide things from Taryn, but I so badly want to emerge from my cocoon fully-formed, unfurl my wings to the amazement of everyone around me. Not only will I have mastered my powers, but I’ll have a powerful position at the King of Ravka’s side, in my red _kefta_. I don’t think even Cardan would find anything to sneer at in that.

“If you’re so worried, stay in bed,” I tell her. “No one said you had to suffer for my sake. These are my fights and my burdens. I’ll bear it.”

Taryn huffs an exhale. “This is why they’re calling you Sankta Jude.”

I groan. “Don’t _you_ start.”

She half-smiles, and I am relieved. “Well, I can’t miss class again. Twice in two weeks will raise too many questions.”

I am glad to have her with me, though I worry about whatever retaliation Cardan and his friends have planned. I don’t want Taryn to be subject to it, too.

“Hey,” I say, as we are sitting down to breakfast, “what do _you_ want to do after graduation?”

Taryn considers the question over a spoonful of porridge. Her manners are bird-like and impeccable, like Oriana’s. “I was thinking about finding a post at the Little Palace,” she says. “Maybe as a designer.”

“Like for clothes?”

“The Fabrikators might know how to make bulletproof cloth, but they aren’t very fashionable.”

I snort. Now that she’s mentioned it, I realize that _kefta_ probably haven’t been altered much in centuries. But the world is changing. It feels sacrilegious to think it, but maybe it’s time for them to change too.

“And then I’m not sure,” Taryn continues, pushing her porridge around with her spoon. “Maybe I’ll marry one someday.”

“A Grisha?” I laugh, but Taryn looks serious.

“Why not?” she asks.

“That didn’t work so well for our mother,” I remind her. “And I don’t think that’s how it works. Falling in love. Getting married. It’s supposed to be spontaneous.”

Taryn pouts. “I didn’t think _you_ of all people would judge me for having a plan.”

She has a point. “Do you have anyone in mind?”

“That’s for me to know,” Taryn replies primly.

“What?” I poke her ribs. “Who!”

“I’m not telling,” she says, but she blushes.

“Well, fine.” I scoop up some of my own porridge. “I just hope it isn’t anyone from our year.”

“Why not?”

“No good options. Besides, wouldn’t you rather be swept off your feet by some handsome older Etherealnik?” Actually, now that I say that out loud, it doesn’t sound like such a terrible fate. So long as it’s not Valerian or Cardan doing the sweeping.

Taryn elbows me lightly, but she doesn’t protest. When I glance over at her, she is eating her porridge with a dreamy, far-off look. I leave her to her thoughts. I am far too busy to fall in love, but I am a little jealous of the smile that turns up the corners of her mouth. It would be nice to have something that simple. To ask for less.

I look at my traitor hands, which can’t remember how to conjure power on their own. And I sigh.

* * *

Our lessons aren’t as awful as Taryn fears they will be, aside from Nicasia shooting glares at us whenever our teachers aren’t looking. Cardan does not appear, and I wonder if I hurt him worse than I thought. Then I wonder if that’s what I can do without trying, what will I be able to do when I am trained?

Taryn and I have traded our summer jackets for winter ones with fur linings. Even so, as we watch the Summoners juggle water and fire and wind in their separate groups, we still remove our gloves every few minutes to breathe on our hands and rub them together and fold our arms across our chests as though we can keep the warmth in. Ravkan winters are uncaring and come on quickly; we have not yet tipped over the precipice of fall, but we will soon.

I am beginning to think that won’t see Cardan at all today, but he and Valerian appear near the end of class. They wait for Nicasia and Locke to finish showing off, lingering on the other side of the pavilions from us. Cardan has his hands in his pockets. Whatever I did yesterday, he is apparently no worse for wear.

His eyes find me once, and a strange, harsh expression crosses his face. Then he turns his head away. He does not look again.

For once, I don’t protest when Taryn wants to take the long way around the lake.

It doesn’t do any good, though. We round the lake and they are there, lingering at the place where the path winds back up to the Little Palace. Cardan is grinning at something Locke said. There are a couple of girls hovering nearby, hoping for a scrap of attention or approval thrown their way. I can’t really blame them. I’m sure I’d do the same if I didn’t know how awful they were. The Etherealki clique draws the eye. At this distance, they shine like polished sapphires.

We have to go through them if we want to get back.

“Maybe we can camp out in the Summoners pavilions,” Taryn suggests. “Just live there forever. Forage for food.”

“No. We’re pushing through.” I look at Taryn. “If we live in fear of them, they’ve already won.”

I start on ahead. Behind me, I hear her say, “It’s not foolish to be afraid of people who can hurt you.”

She’s right, of course. But they don’t know that I can hurt them back, now more than ever.

Part of me hopes that my powers are fueled by anger. I had been angry at Cardan, after all. I clench my fists, willing that awareness to flood my veins.

Nothing comes.

Distracted, I nearly collide with Nicasia. “Oh—”

Instead of stepping to avoid me, Nicasia shoves at my shoulder, knocking me back a step on the path. My foot dislodges a rock, which skitters away from us like a frightened mouse.

“I heard about what you did,” she says.

I waste a few seconds staring dumbly at her. She couldn’t have found out about my secret. Could she? No, that’s impossible. As far as Nicasia knows, all I did was push Cardan into a wall. And as far as she cares, that’s enough of an excuse.

“And?” I ask.

“_And_?” Her eyes widen, like I have said something unbelievable. “And you can’t do that!”

“Well, I did.”

She shoves my shoulder again. There is a pause, and her eyes flicker toward Cardan and Locke. She’s waiting to see if they’re watching. And they are now, but Cardan’s mouth thins into a straight line.

Undaunted, she tosses her hair over her shoulder and demands, “Apologize to him.”

“No.”

“What’s this?” asks Valerian, sauntering up to stand at her side.

“Jude won’t apologize for laying her filthy hands on Cardan,” Nicasia says.

Valerian considers me, and sneers. “So we make her.”

“No one will make me,” I say, folding my arms. “I did it, and I’d do it again.”

Taryn rushes up beside me. “She doesn’t mean that,” she says. “Jude, come on.”

I keep looking at Nicasia, and past her, at where Cardan is standing with a slight frown on his face. The girls are no longer hovering, and a flicker of movement at the corner of my eyes tells me he’s sent them scurrying back up the path. No witnesses. I stand my ground.

“What were you thinking, pushing a prince of Ravka?” Nicasia asks.

“He was bothering Taryn. I wanted him to leave her alone.”

Taryn flinches like she’s been struck, but it’s the truth. Cardan started this. I was not in the wrong. Of course, that hardly matters to them.

“Cardan bothers a lot of girls,” says Locke. “I’m sure it wasn’t personal.”

Cardan saunters over to stand next to Nicasia, sighing like we’re all exhausting him with petty squabbling. “All this talk,” he complains. “Let’s get to the heart of it. Do you want us to leave you alone?”

“Yes, _moi tsarevich_,” Taryn says quickly. Her relief is obvious. “That’s what we want.”

He looks at me with those keen, dark eyes. “Is it what you want, Jude?”

It isn’t what I want. I want to make them all sorry. My hands are clenched so tightly into fists that my nails dig into the meat of my palms. _Please come_, _please_. But my dormant powers do not appear.

With a glance at Taryn’s dismayed face, I shrug one shoulder.

“Fine,” says Cardan. He turns a smile on her that would be benevolent coming from anyone else. “We can arrange that, if you complete one simple task.”

“Name it,” I say, turning my chin up at him.

“Swim to the island in the middle of the lake.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

I look at Nicasia, at Valerian. At Locke, who has not yet said a word against me, but isn’t exactly helping, either. “You all agree it?”

When Nicasia smiles, it’s the grin of a shark that smells blood in the water. “Of course,” she says.

Locke raises his eyebrows at me.

I think I know the trap that’s about to be sprung, but the deal is too good to pass up. I turn back to Cardan. “Okay.”

“Jude,” Taryn whispers.

“I know what I’m doing,” I whisper back. I begin undoing my jacket.

Cardan asks abruptly, “Do you want to take her place, twin sister?”

Taryn bites her lip, but she says nothing. My chest aches a little, but I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t want to take my place either. I hand her my jacket and bend down to unlace my boots without glancing again at her face.

“Then you don’t have a say,” Cardan concludes, in a tone that says his judgment is final.

“Do we have to do this now?” Taryn asks. “It’s freezing.”

“Jude seems ready,” says Valerian, his voice heavy with some double entendre.

I ignore him and continue stripping down, the cold insistently pricking at my skin. Once most of my layers are gone, I hesitate before pulling my shirt over my head. Everything I wouldn’t want them to see is covered, and I don’t have a lot of modesty left after living in the dorms with all the other girls, but there’s something awful about being the only person undressed. I tell myself this is no different than wearing swimming clothes.

Without looking behind me, I step into the water.

“Jude!” Taryn calls again.

“Back in a second,” I say. It’s all I say.

The lake holds none of its summer warmth. I wade in as quickly as I can, flinching at the bracing shock of cold when the lake water comes up to my navel. That’s always the worst part, getting used to it. Best to plunge right in.

When the water is deep enough, I bend my knees, face toward the island, and push off the bank.

For a blessed minute, I swim on unimpeded. Most of us are strong swimmers. When you’re Grisha, you never know where the Second Army will take you, whether you’ll find yourself in combat on land or sea. We were formally instructed as children and spent time training to endure the cold water every winter since. I’m not worried about stamina. I know I can make it to the island.

But Nicasia is a Tidemaker, and she is angry with me. The thing I fear most is her wrath.

I am expecting the lake to grow choppy around me, and soon it does, pressing me back toward the shore. A current forms in what should be smooth waters. Swimming against it, the most I can manage is staying in place and tiring myself out. That won’t be good enough. Not to win.

The current loosens its hold just enough to allow me to surge forward, giving me false hope, before it resumes pressing me back. Mocking me. I wonder if she’ll just hold me here, toy with me, or let me reach the island after all. Maybe it will be enough if they make me feel powerless one last time, with the knowledge that even if I am able to swim to the island, it was only their mercy that allowed me to do so.

Then the first wave gushes over my head, knocking me under. Suddenly everything is dark. Lakewater stings against my eyes, forcing them shut. My mind goes blank from panic.

I should have known it would never be that easy.

Drowning is a curious thing. Even if you know what to do, you forget it. You’ll know you should conserve your strength and your body insists on thrashing around. You’ll know you should stay calm, yet fear is all you know. Your mind screams at you to break the surface, but the waters are so confounded around you that you no longer know which way is up.

I am going to die down here. I know it.

My heart thuds dully in my ears. If I had my power, could I distract Nicasia? Could I cut off her airflow, or just make her a little dizzy, so her concentration would break and the onslaught would stop? I think so, but I don’t know. All I can do is keep my mouth shut and not breathe in. If I breathe in, it’s over.

Then there is a lull. I look up and see the cold white sunlight above the surface of the water. But my limbs are already aching with lack of oxygen. Feebly, I begin to swim upward, wondering if I’ll make it in time. Then a gush of water catches me in the ribs, pushing me the rest of the way to the surface.

I break through, gulping down air.

From the bank, I hear Nicasia and Valerian laughing.

There is only time for one breath before another wave finds me, tossing me back into the depths of the lake.

In my anger I find a moment of clarity. I know the game now. Nicasia is letting me go under for just long enough to make me panic and then surfacing me intentionally. We all know how long it takes a person to drown. We all know about the breath-hold breakpoint, the point at which it is no longer possible to hold one’s breath, when there is so much carbon dioxide in the blood that the body demands oxygen. This is when you breathe in water; this is when you truly drown. They are bringing me to the surface before I hit mine, guessing I can keep holding my breath for about a minute.

The next time the water nudges me up so I break the surface of the lake, I take a deep gulp of air. I am allowed three seconds to decide what to do. I can’t keep fighting forever. They will tire me out and they will win.

So after I am back under, I do the only thing that will surprise them. I count to fifteen, and then I stop moving.

At first I am still buffeted about by the uncaring lake, which seems determined to push my head down against the smooth silt at the bottom. But then the water slows, as if confused. And then it stops altogether.

Although everything in me screams to move, I force myself to remain still and relaxed. It turns out that I am not too deep down after all. When I float to the surface of the water, I hear yelling.

Of course. If I actually drown, there is trouble. Not even a prince could talk his way out of that. Madoc’s wrath would come down on them like a sledgehammer. They have a very, very short window of opportunity to decide what to do, or they’re completely screwed.

Among all of the voices—overlapping male voices indistinguishable, Nicasia’s rising above them—I don’t hear Taryn. She is quiet. I can picture the shade of her worry, pale and pleading. I remember how she looked when she tried to wake our mother.

I hope she sees me take a deep breath and slip back under the surface of the water while the Grisha are all arguing amongst themselves.

The lake no longer fights me as I swim through it. The only thing standing in my way is my own body. I am so tired of swimming, so tired of pressing forward. But whenever I think about stopping, I remember Cardan in the infirmary, hissing at me to give up, and I kick a little harder.

Once again, I long for the awareness I discovered last night. Where is my power? If I had even a little Heartrender skill, I could dose myself with enough adrenaline to make me forget the way I ache all over. Why would it wake when I was angry at Cardan, but not now, when I am angry at everyone, especially myself? Does it make a difference now, knowing that I am Grisha, if I am still broken?

I press on anyway. I get so close. I can see the gentle slope of the shore ahead of me, the blades of grass going brown as the cold sets in. So much fighting just to get to a balding little patch of land. I am almost in the shallows where I can crawl my way to land. But then the water has hold of me again, dragging me back into the lake ankle-first by an unseen hand.

This was never a game I could win.

But I don’t go quietly. I flail, I kick, I yell, and I don’t care if it amuses them. I accidentally breathe in, and the water burns going down my nostrils. All of me burns, with anger and exhaustion. And there is so very little I can do about it.

Before the lake spits me out, I suck in water through my mouth and hold it there. It tastes like dirt and disappointment.

The last wave washes me all the way back to the shore. Nicasia lowers her hands. She’s radiant. They all look like that after they use their power. I, on the other hand, am chilled to the bone in my underwear, dripping wet, and covered in gooseflesh, my chest heaving as I try to breathe in as much air as I can through my nose. Locke has removed his _kefta_ for some reason. Valerian looks disappointed I didn’t all the way.

“So close, and yet so far,” Cardan drawls. He leans over me, his face completely blotting out the sun. “Better luck next time.”

I spit the mouthful of lake water I had been saving right in his face.

Cardan sputters and takes a step back from me, wiping his eyes. I hear him swear, which feels good. It doesn’t make everything worth it, but it feels good. I sit up, coughing and soaked to the bone, my eyes and nose burning.

“All right, you’ve had your fun,” says Locke.

He lays his _kefta_ on my shoulders. He has changed his silk one out for wool, and it is warm and surprisingly heavy, lined with reddish fox fur. I feel like I should reject it—it’s no small thing, to lend someone a _kefta_—but I just pull it more tightly around me. At some point I started shivering hard enough to make my teeth rattle.

“Locke the gallant,” Cardan sneers. “So chivalrous all of a sudden. Why don’t you ever help me with my coat?”

“Go jump in a lake and maybe I will,” Locke retorts. And something clicks. He had taken off his _kefta_ because he was going to jump in after me.

Maybe they aren’t all bad.

“Jude,” Taryn says, kneeling down beside me. She’s holding my clothes bundled up in her arms. Her face is nearly white.

“I’m okay,” I say, but I sneeze after. I want to stand without help, but my legs shake; I brace a hand on her shoulder and use it to push to my feet. Then I sway, and Locke puts out an arm to support me.

Nicasia has a hand on Cardan’s arm, and steam rises from his _kefta_ and his hair. She is drying him. Maybe that will earn her a few points, although I imagine the feeling of lake scum doesn’t fade so easily. He is watching us, furious.

“Let’s get you to a fireplace,” Taryn says.

“Lighter’s in my sleeve,” says Locke. He holds out his hand, palm up, and when Taryn flicks the lighter a fireball forms above it. He brings it in close to me. It feels really, really nice, the fire, and his arm around my shoulders.

We begin walking back up to the palace, me sandwiched between Locke and Taryn like they are trying to shield me from my own rash stupidity.

“If you know what’s good for you,” Cardan calls after us, “you’ll give up these games you’re playing.”

How can he say that when they all just saw me jump in a lake, playing a game there was no way to win? I think I have made it apparent that I have no idea what is good for me.

The only consolation is that no one else does, either.

* * *

I am sure that one of the servants saw us going back to the Little Palace, me dripping wet and wrapped in a boy’s _kefta_, Taryn clutching my clothes. I am sure they will tell Madoc, who will demand an explanation. And I dread the questioning. Even though I know I could defend us, I can’t turn his wrath on a prince. I will have to lie.

But I am spared lying, because just before dinner that night, a bell tolls from the Grand Palace, its mournful clang echoing through the Hall of the Golden Dome. Everyone stops what they are doing. Some look up. Others stand. A Healer lets out a small cry and presses her hand to her mouth.

There is no mistaking what that bell means.

The King is dead.


	9. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who are intimately familiar with the Grishaverse novellas, there's a minor retcon in this chapter (sorry Ms. Bardugo).

I assume my training will be postponed. That isn’t the case.

That very night, with the Palace hushed in mourning and me lying alone in bed nursing aching muscles and a stinging ego, a man raps at my second story window. I am up immediately, reaching for the knife under my pillow, assuming Cardan or one of his friends has come to finish me off. But it’s just the scarred man, the amplifier from the previous evening, come to take me to a nest of spies.

I have snuck out my own window before, so I can at least do that without falling flat on my face. I trail the man out across the grounds and through the woods, barely exchanging a word with him. When he disappears into the empty chapel, I follow. And when he crosses it, opening the wall to reveal a secret passageway, I follow then, too, biting back my nervousness.

Dain’s people call themselves the Court of Shadows. They don’t usually meet in the war room. Their lair is underground. Through them I learn about the network of tunnels once used by devout servants of the Apparat, back when religion had more of a foothold in the capital with the royal family. The tunnels had fallen out of use before Dain decided to adopt them as his own. He’s had them expanded a bit, the scarred man tells me, so the tunnels reach nearly everywhere, even linking some of the bunkers on both Grand and Little Palace grounds.

“Hard, dirty work,” he says. “You’re lucky you missed it.”

The scarred man is called the Roach, and he is a rare amplifier who has no Grisha power of his own. The white-haired woman who’d brought me to Dain the first time is called the Bomb. She’s a Fabrikator. When I ask her what her specialty is—whether she’s Durast or Alkemi—she just grins at me and says, “everything,” although once I have gained more of her confidence she admits that her favorite type of work is blowing things up.

The last member of the party is the Ghost, who I had not met before. He is a lean, handsome man and looks not much older than I am, maybe in his early twenties. I learn that he is the Sun Summoner who camouflaged the Roach last night in the war room. His Ravkan is impeccable, but there’s no mistaking the raggedness of his consonants. Whether he’s a Fjerdan transplant or just grew up north near the border, I don’t know.

In fact, I don’t know what to make of any of them. I know that Grisha are schooled in a few other institutions across Ravka—none as prestigious as the Little Palace, and more focused on trades than military training—but the Court of Shadows all seem rough around the edges, as though they brought themselves up entirely outside of any system. At first they don’t seem to know what to make of me, either. I know I must look like a pampered child to them.

But I work hard, and that they care about. Each night I sneak out to meet them in the tunnels, where I train: my Grisha powers with the Roach, combat and stealth with the Ghost, handy powders and poisons from the Bomb, picking up additional skills in subterfuge from all of them. The Ghost fights like no one I’ve ever met; the Grisha all learn the same form of combat, elegant and graceful. Even Madoc, who would intentionally bend rules when he trained me and Taryn privately, never altogether broke them with us. But the Ghost has no rules. I imagine he grew up fighting on the street. From him, I learn new ways to fight dirty.

And so it goes for a couple of weeks. Every night I start by trying to use my powers unaided, and when that inevitably fails, I call the Roach over. I am ashamed that I have to be literally hand-held just to be a normal Corporalnik, but it’s better than no power at all. And from years of observation, I possess as much knowledge of Corporalki theory as any Grisha, even if I am rough on the finer points of skill.

Initially, I practice on myself, slowing and speeding my own heart, tailoring away blemishes on my own skin, healing my own bruises. But tonight, the Bomb is my willing test subject, seated across from me as I hold out my hands, trying to slow her heartbeat without the Roach’s help. My brow is furrowed in concentration, my teeth clenched. I think I can hear her heart, but then I realize that’s just my own, beating harder from the strain.

“Anything?” I ask, trying not to let hope shine through.

She hesitates. “Well,” she says, “I do feel very calm.”

I sit back in my chair, dejected.

“Grisha power can be erratic,” she says.

She’s taking pity on me, which is honestly the worst part of all of this. I shift in my seat. “When you started, was it like this?”

The Bomb doesn’t say anything.

I sigh. “That’s what I thought.”

“To be fair, my circumstances were pretty different.” She shrugs one shoulder. “When you have to shape metal to put food on the table, you learn how to shape metal pretty quick. I don’t know how you get anything done in a cushy place like this.”

There’s no urgency here, she’s saying. It’s not life or death. But it certainly feels life or death to me. Sometimes I close my eyes to sleep and feel water burning in my nostrils, feel myself choking on lakewater. Practice is the only thing that keeps me from remembering how close I came to dying at the bottom of the lake.

I shake my head, shake myself out of it. The normal thing to do would be to make conversation. I ask her, “So were you a metalworker?”

“Only at first” She gives me a conspiratorial smile, now with a playful glint in her eye. “I was a forger. Best one on the other side of the True Sea.”

“A forger?” I am unable to keep the fascination from my voice. With the Court of Shadows I am reminded that, despite all that I have seen and all I have endured, I have grown up within the walls of the Little Palace. There is so much I have never done, so much of the world that I do not know.

“Don’t let her start talking or she’ll put _you_ to sleep,” says the Roach, coming up behind me. I can read him well enough to know that he doesn’t think I am ready to be trusted with the full story just yet. I understand. I am less of an outsider than I was, but I am an outsider still.

The Bomb rolls her eyes, but fondly.

“Ready to ask for help?” the Roach asks.

I wrinkle my nose. “Never.”

“There’s no shame in it.”

He has no idea. Corporalki children working alone can manage this stuff. Despite all the work I have done, the hours of sleep I have lost, I cannot.

Resigned, I hold out my hand and let the Roach take my wrist. The power comes more easily now, at least, more of a flood than a trickle. When it rushes forth, I inhale.

“Focus,” says the Roach. “I know it’s overwhelming.”

But he has no idea how overwhelming, to go from nothing to that rush of power, to suddenly know the blood and the breathing of everyone in the chamber, and even beyond it. I can feel all of the Roach’s scars, maybe because he’s so near. There are broken bones in his fingers that healed long ago.

More frustratingly, I can feel that there is more there, more power, lurking just beneath the surface. The roots under the tree, the springs that feed the river. I have tried to call it forth, to uproot it, but it won’t come. No one else in the room has noticed, and I haven’t told them. What I have is more than enough to do the work I need to do.

The Bomb watches me closely. “You ready?”

I nod, and breathe.

The power no longer rushes out of me. I can direct it. I pick out the Bomb’s heartbeat and, not wanting to hurt her, I slow it a little at a time, gradually, gently. And to my delight, it works. First she yawns, then blinks drowsily at us, then her eyes soften closed and her head droops forward.

“All right, now bring her up,” says the Roach.

I nod, and concentrate. Hearts are so delicate. Gradually, I bring hers back to its normal quickstep, steadying the tempo. The Bomb rouses, rubbing her eyes.

“How long was I out?” she asks.

The Roach answers for me. “Not even a minute. How do you feel?”

“Well, I’ve felt better.” She gives me a wink. “But I’m alive, which is what matters.”

I breathe a sigh of relief, then sigh as the Roach releases my hand and power ebbs out of me.

“I knew you could do it,” she assures me. “I wouldn’t have offered if I thought you couldn’t.”

My only reply is a tight-lipped nod. It would have been so much easier to lose control and kill her.

But even though I can’t call the power on my own, I am definitely improving. Grisha power is strengthened through use. For the first time, I find myself wondering how often Madoc needs to use his, how often he needs a skirmish or a fight. I know there have been a few close calls with the Fjerdans, a few lost soldiers. Does he need those to stay strong, to keep his powers sharp, or is he content to practice on himself as I have been? Somehow, that doesn’t seem likely.

“Should we try again?” I ask.

Before they can answer, Prince Dain enters from one of the larger tunnels, looking as at ease in the Court of Shadows’ lair as he might in a ballroom. He carries a folder in his leather-gloved hands. I stand from my chair, all thoughts of future practice forgotten.

“Jude,” says Dain, nodding at me. “How’s your progress?”

“She’s getting better,” says the Roach. I’m glad that he has spared me the self-assessment, but gladder to hear something that might pass for praise.

“I still can’t do anything without help,” I admit, inclining my head toward the Roach.

Dain doesn’t seems unbothered. “Once you have your own amplifier, he’ll be relieved from duty.”

My heart skips. “My own amplifier?”

Although they were once given to any favored Grisha, now only members of the royal family get amplifiers, special artifacts that enhance their powers. I’ve seen Princess Rhyia’s, a rabbit’s foot she wears around her neck on a silver chain, claws intact. Dain’s is at his throat, a collar of horns, maybe goat or ram. I haven’t seen Cardan’s, if he even has one yet.

Dain nods. He crosses the room to stand by one of the tables, still holding the dusty-looking file. Some of the pages within are yellowed. “The royal family has long been tracking every animal suspected of being an amplifier, both within and outside of Ravkan borders. As it stands, you have greater need of an amplifier than any prince or princess.” He pauses. “You’ll have to prove yourself, of course.”

Of course. Nothing can ever just be gifted to me. But it makes practical sense—he’ll want to know his investment is sound—and I nod. “I won’t let you down.” I pause. “And then we’ll hunt? You’ll bring me?”

He doesn’t miss my meaning. The smile he turns on me is nothing if not benevolent. “Of course, Jude. I’m no storybook villain. I’ll make some excuse to your father and take you with the hunting party. It’s your power. Your kill.”

I am relieved. Of course Dain’s not a villain. He doesn’t _look_ like a villain, with his golden curls and easy smile. Nothing like Cardan, who always has a sinister curl to his lips, whose hair and eyes are pitch black like a moonless night. They might be brothers, or half-brothers, but they couldn’t be more different. Dain is not cruel, and he has been nothing but generous with me.

Still, I would be naive not to look for strings. And I am reassured that he’s chosen to give me an amplifier rather than a steady drip of _jurda parem_, which was the other option and an awful one. Ordinary Grisha who need to perform extraordinary feats use tightly controlled doses of_ parem_, chased quickly by an antidote. _Parem_ is extremely addictive and can alter Grisha power—provided the Grisha survives the withdrawal. If Dain chose to just give me _parem_ when he needed my help, it would mean he could turn on and off my power as he saw fit. Not the permanent solution I was promised.

Dain sits down in an empty chair, and I sit, too. He waves his hand absentmindedly. A nearby candle flickers against the invisible current of air he stirs in the room. “You’ve been working hard,” he says, as though reading my mind. “I have something else for you.”

“_Moi tsarevich_?” I am straight-backed in my seat. I see the Roach and the Bomb exchange a glance around me. Their manners are easy, casual, but I was raised by soldiers and among them. Old habits die hard.

He slides a thick envelope out of the file, one of the sturdy yellow ones the size of an entire sheet of paper. It doesn’t look too full. “These are usually kept in a special vault in the Civil War Museum,” he explains. “Protected from the elements, and from those who might consider them relics.”

“Relics,” I echo.

“Don’t handle them without gloves,” he says, passing me the envelope. “They’re old, and very brittle. Someone once tried to burn them.”

I accept the envelope with a bare hand, wondering if I’ll feel a jolt of power or see something glowing within. But nothing. It’s just an envelope. I am a little annoyed he’s not telling me what’s inside, but maybe that’s part of the surprise. Or maybe he just wants me to trust him without asking any questions.

_Would you be content to follow orders?_

“A bit of light reading,” Dain continues. “Not that you need more homework.”

“I’ll be careful with them,” I promise. “Thank you.”

He nods. “Now,” he says. “Let me see you work.”

* * *

My training, on top of classes, homework, and family obligations, usually leaves me wanting to collapse into bed the moment I climb back in through my window in the small hours of the morning. But not tonight.

Instead, I sit at my desk with the large envelope laid out in front of me. I am wearing my best leather gloves, as instructed. I handle the envelope gingerly, unwinding the string that ties the flap shut with care, a little daunted by whatever might be inside. I wonder again why Dain wouldn’t tell me what the contents are.

Maybe he thought I would feel let down. When I look inside, I see only burned pieces of yellowed paper, some mere scraps, blackened beyond readability. Someone really had tried to burn them. What could be so important? I frown, plucking at one of the more intact pieces and sliding it out of the envelope.

My frown deepens. This is clearly a letter. Just a letter. I thought it might be something important, like a government order or a ledger or a top-secret scientific study of late-blooming Grisha. For a moment, I _am_ disappointed.

But when I start reading it, my jaw drops.

_Dear Mal,_

_It’s been a week since I last wrote. I still haven’t received a reply from you, so I have chosen to imagine that the entire First Army is dealing with an infestation of booklice that’s chewed through all the paper, old and musty as it is. If this is true, then I am grateful you haven’t sent me a pile of chewed-up mush through the post. Given the rate at which supplies are restocked out there, I imagine I won’t be hearing from you for a while._

_Here in Os Alta, the weather is turning. I don’t know why that surprises me. Everything is so upside-down here that I guess I find it strange that seasons come and go just the same. Cold has a way of seeping even through the thick walls of the Little Palace. If they let me, I’d hibernate like the big black bear we stumbled on in the woods that one time. Just sleep straight through the winter, happy and oblivious._

_Do you remember how awful it smelled in that cave? I was so scared it would wake up and eat us, but you were grinning ear to ear. And you were right. It’s a good story now. I think about it a lot, the way I clung to your hand out of fear, the way you somehow knew everything would be okay._

_ <strike>I could use some of that certainty right now.</strike> _

_<strike></strike>Of course you were right, which continues to annoy me to no end. You’re right so much. It isn’t fair. Getting eaten by a bear would have at least taught you a lesson._

_Genya makes the days somewhat bearable. Her smile is always warm, no matter how cold it gets. Eating with her, laughing and talking, makes me feel almost normal. I don’t know exactly what she is, but I hope she’s my friend. I told you in my last letter about the Fabrikator she’s in love with. It’s funny to see a girl so beautiful pining for someone who doesn’t seem to care about beauty at all, but it’s sweet, too. I think you would get on with her. It’s hard not to._

_Otherwise, it’s all the same routine. Same faces. Not too different from being in the First Army, even though the decoration is much nicer. I see the Darkling sometimes. He talks about his confidence in me, and doesn’t seem to realize that that is intimidating. He’s the kind of <strike>man</strike> person you don’t want to disappoint. But he’s in and out, busy running the Second Army, so we don’t get to talk very much. And anyway, it’s not like we’re friends. I find it hard to imagine ever having a casual conversation with him. He’s too busy making dramatic entrances, sweeping in and out of rooms, and so on._

_That’s what I imagine you’d say, anyway, if you were here._

_I find myself thinking about what you’d see in these halls a lot. You have a way of cutting to the heart of everything, and I think you wouldn’t be afraid to point out all of the strange contradictions of this incredible place that only I seem to notice. I can see you pulling faces behind Sergei’s back and mocking the puffed-up way Ivan carries himself. Imagining what you’d say or do if you were here helps me get through it all. Everyone is depending on me to be something great, and it makes me miss when I didn’t have to be anything more than what I am._

_I hope you get to come to Os Alta someday, even if it’s just for a little while. Forgetting everything else, I want to show you the grounds and the lake and all of the carved walls. I want you to get to taste sugar again—it’s so much sweeter than I remembered._

_I guess I shouldn’t doubt that you’ll find your way here eventually. After all, you can find anything._

_Write back._

_A_

I have to read the letter twice through before I really accept the truth of it. Prince Dain has given me _Alina Starkov’s letters_. And not just any letters, but ones she’d written during her brief first tenure at the Little Palace. The markers are all there. She was struck by the luxuries, even the small ones like the sugar jar. She wrote about the Darkling like he was someone whose approval she’d like to earn.

Saints.

I replace the sheaf of yellowed paper back in the envelope, my hand shaking. I don’t know what to make of this gift. Is Dain trying to show me that even the Sun Summoner started out as just a girl? Her words dripped with loneliness. It’s hard to believe that a saint could ever have felt like such an outsider.

After the pulse-pounding shock has faded, I reread the letter once more and realize Alina didn’t say anything about her powers, or her lessons. I know that those would consume her days as they consume mine. Was it possible that they weren’t going well for her either? That she, too, struggled to master her power? I assume if things were progressing smoothly, she would have told her friend. Mal. Malyen Oretsev, her soldier and one of her lovers, here just a boy named Mal who hadn’t written her back.

It’s so strange to read about Alina in her own words. But it’s stranger still to think of her as a girl with terrible handwriting, who missed her friend. A girl who didn’t fit in, and who was lonely.

How little she knew about what was going to happen to her.

_Everyone is depending on me to be something great_, she wrote.

I close my eyes. I don’t have very many people depending on me, but the ones who are certainly matter—Prince Dain and the Court of Shadows. Taryn, too, although she doesn’t yet know it. And myself. I am depending on myself to figure this out.

In the end, Alina was enough. I have to be, too. I _will_ be, I think, looking down at the letter, at the ghost of a girl who came long before me.

I just hope the cost won’t be too steep.


	10. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI: there's canon-compliant depiction of physical abuse in this chapter.

Two nights later, the Ghost appears at my window. I am called for my first real mission.

“Wear these,” he says, handing me a bundle. “You’re going to the Grand Palace.”

The bundle is livery, black and gold instead of white. Everyone on palace grounds is in their mourning blacks, except the Grisha, who are expressly forbidden from wearing black ever again. Even the royal Grisha children only wear black armbands over their usual _kefta_.

I slip into my washroom and change quickly, finishing my disguise by pulling my hair into a tight bun. In this case, it helps that I don’t have the Grisha glow. I make a very passable palace servant. Only a few short weeks ago, I would have considered that an insult. Now it’s an asset.

Once I am ready, the Ghost drops out of my window, landing almost soundlessly. I follow his lead. I am not yet as graceful as he is, but I don’t embarrass myself. As soon as my feet touch the ground, he bends the light around me, then himself, and we both vanish completely. I hold my hand up in front of my face, marveling at the slight shimmer as the moonlight bounces off of it.

“What do I need to do?” I ask as we hurry through the trees to the Grand Palace.

“We need you to take out the guards in front of Balekin’s rooms,” is the Ghost’s reply. “Put them to sleep. Nothing you haven’t done before.”

I blink. “Prince Dain suspects his brother of treason?”

“He’d be a fool not to. Balekin’s had his eyes on the throne even before King Eldred took ill. If he’s going to strike, he’ll do it soon. We suspect he’ll make the attempt before Dain’s crowned.”

“But who would back Balekin over Dain?”

“Half the First Army,” he replies. “Some of the Lords. Anyone who doesn’t want to see a Grisha on the throne.”

I take stock of what I know of Prince Balekin. He has something of a reputation for debauchery; the parties he throws are legendary. But he did serve in the First Army for longer than his required years of service, and continues to hold a post that may or may not be honorary. I’ve seen him speaking with Madoc on a few occasions, and I don’t think Madoc would waste his time with someone who wasn’t somewhat competent, even if they are a prince. I suppose I can see why the First Army might be more comfortable with one of their own on the throne. That’s how it’s been for centuries, after all.

On our way across the grounds, we are struck by a few fat drops of cold rain. The Ghost says nothing more, and I realize belatedly that this is the most we’ve ever spoken. He camouflages me until I am safely inside the Palace.

No one notices another black-clad girl climbing up the narrow servants’ stairs. The real danger is being caught on the surveillance recorders once I enter the main halls. I keep my head down and move quickly, with purpose. As long as I am facing away from the lenses, I should be nearly impossible to recognize. And if I am careful enough, no one will ever know I was here. There will be no reason to check the tapes.

Balekin’s rooms are on the third floor of the Grand Palace. They are too high up for us to inconspicuously scale the walls, the windows locked from inside. The best way in is the most straightforward one.

I meet the Roach, who is also dressed in mourning colors, in an alcove. A blind spot in the security system. “Are you ready?” he asks.

I nod, wiping sweaty palms on my borrowed uniform.

“Two of them,” he says. “Nice and easy.”

“I know what to do,” I say, and give him my hand.

The power springs forward, surprisingly eager tonight. Perhaps it knows that I no longer intend to use it for practice, that this is the real thing. I close my eyes and steady my breathing.

The two guards are easy to sense beyond the Roach. One of them is already tired, already yawning. I bring their heart rates down slowly, taking as much time as I am allowed. I don’t want them to wake up sensing something amiss.

Within minutes, they are both asleep.

“It’s done?” the Roach asks. When I give him another nod, he releases my hand. “Good. Balekin’s study is the second door on the right.”

“You’re sending me in?” I ask.

“This is your mission.”

And Dain had said I’d need to prove myself to earn my amplifier. I set my jaw. “What am I looking for?”

“Anything unusual,” says the Roach. “Or, failing that, who he’s in contact with. Get what you can and leave the study undisturbed.”

I say, “Right,” and hope I manage to sound more confident than I feel.

“I’ll be nearby,” he assures me. “But the princes and princesses are all gathered downstairs, arguing over coronation plans. You shouldn’t run into any trouble.”

There is no resistance from the guards, one of whom snores softly. I hurry down the hall alone, hands folded, head bowed, the picture of servile obedience. When I try the door to Balekin’s study, it is unlocked.

It is a large room, drafty for a study and mostly empty. There is a desk, two large leather chairs, and a low table atop an ornamental rug. One wall is entirely covered by a mahogany bookshelf, although many of the books’ spines look barely cracked. A giant fireplace stands in the corner, two carved eagles supporting the mantle. The fire is lit, and I throw a log on it and prod it with a poker so it looks like I had a reason to be here. Then I go to the desk, which is piled high with correspondence. I’ll have more than enough to report.

I leaf through the letters gingerly and write down any names I see on a fresh sheet of paper, borrowing one of Balekin’s nicest pens. There is some thrill to that, at touching and taking what is not for me. I am careful to wrap my sleeve around my hand so I don’t leave any smudges or fingerprints behind.

Most of the names go by without me truly processing them. I add a couple of First Army generals to my list, along with a name that is naggingly familiar—and then I realize it’s Nicasia’s mother, Orlagh. Why would Balekin have reason to correspond with her? Them being in touch can’t mean anything good.

I am just beginning to read what she has written him when there is a commotion in the hall. Prince Balekin has returned to find his guards asleep.

With blood pounding in my ears, I fold the paper and stuff it down the front of my dress. There is no way I can leave the room without being seen, but if I stay tending the fire and scurry out after the prince has passed down the hall, he likely won’t give me a second glance.

And even if he recognized me, what would he do? Likely just return me to Madoc like a lost glove. At least, that’s what I hope he’d do. I realize I don’t actually know.

I station myself by the fire and duck my head down, committed to my plan, until I hear another voice from the hall—younger, male, snide. It is a voice that haunts my nightmares, that laughs at me as I drown.

Balekin probably wouldn’t know me by sight. Cardan definitely would.

I dive for one of the chairs, crawling behind it and settling into a very low crouch. I will their footsteps to pass the study by, will them to go elsewhere.

So of course the study door opens not a minute later.

I make myself as small as I can behind the chair, hoping neither of them look my way or circle the room. Balekin wears a fine suit of all black, and Cardan, in his shadow, is in a wool _kefta_ of midnight blue, the obligatory black armband high on his bicep. Thankfully, they seem to be preoccupied. Balekin is still shaking his head and muttering, presumably about the incompetence of his guards.

“Never mind that. Here,” he says. He crosses to the fireplace, coming perilously close to me, but then he just plucks a candlestick from the mantle of the fireplace and goes to the desk. “Come here.”

“Yes?”

Balekin removes a matchbox from his pocket and strikes a match hard, impatient in his anger. He lights the wick, which catches and flares. As far as I can tell, it’s just a normal candle. “I am short on time. Do something.”

Cardan moves toward the desk with deliberate slowness, hands in his _kefta_ pockets. Balekin and Cardan do look like brothers, with their glossy black curls, their high cheekbones, their piercing eyes. Even their builds are similar, although Cardan still possesses the teenage lankiness that Balekin must have shed at some point. Balekin’s wearing an expression I’ve seen on Cardan’s face many times, aggression shining through a thin veneer of boredom. But Cardan’s face is carefully schooled blank.

“What is it that you expect me to do tonight, exactly?” he asks.

Balekin gestures, making the candle flicker. “Stoke the flame. Gather it into your palm. Scorch the desk, if you wish. Do anything other than stand there gawping uselessly.”

“You know I deal in wind, not fire,” Cardan retorts. “How many times must we have this conversation?”

“That isn’t how I remember it.”

“Then your memory must be failing you.” Cardan clicks his tongue. “What a shame, for you to be showing your age so—”

Balekin reaches over and grabs Cardan’s shoulder, hard. I’m not sure why Cardan isn’t resisting. I expect him to wrench his arm back, but he’s as pliant and movable as a ragdoll, and he lets Balekin drag him away from the desk. His face is still blank, but there is a recognizable spark of hatred in his dark eyes, one that I know all too well.

“Then let’s see how you fare with wind,” Balekin says.

Outside, it has begun to pour.

Cardan continues not to resist as Balekin hauls him to the window by the collar of his _kefta_, as Balekin pitches him forward so his nose nearly presses against the glass. “Look. It’s a perfect night. Perfect cover. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Bad for horseback riding,” Cardan intones. “Or even just a walk.”

“But we’re not speaking of horseback riding,” Balekin replies. “Surely no one would notice if a sapling were ripped from the ground in all of this commotion. That one.” He points, releasing Cardan’s collar. “There.”

Cardan sighs, shakes himself, and picks up his hands. He holds still for a minute, then drops them to the windowsill. “As always, brother,” he says, “miracles cannot be brought about through sheer force of will. Again, I don’t know what you hope to squeeze out of me this time, but—”

Balekin slaps him.

It happens so suddenly that I have to cover my mouth to stifle a gasp. Cardan’s head jerks, but he doesn’t even stumble back. The knuckles of his hands on the window ledge go white. He expected that, I realize. He knew the slap was coming and braced himself. This isn’t the first time this has happened, not by a long shot.

Balekin, like Dain, wears a lot of rings, and one of them tore Cardan’s cheek. He is bleeding, but Balekin doesn’t even seem to notice. He is looking out the window, where the rain continues uninterrupted.

“Nothing,” he practically spits. “Not so much as a breeze. As always, you continue to be a disappointment. When I agreed to care for you, I thought...”

“That finally you’d have someone on whom to take out your many frustrations?” Cardan’s voice is flat and dull, like a blade that’s been used too many times. I should gloat at seeing him hurt. It should make me feel better to know his life isn’t all prancing and parties. But it doesn’t. I just feel cold. Mostly I am hoping he’ll do something other than stand there. Failing that, I hope he’ll shut up because I’m pretty sure Balekin is only going to hit him again.

He isn’t going to shut up, though. I know that with a certainty I don’t want to examine too closely.

Balekin does slap him again, this time with an open palm, and harder. I assume he doesn’t appreciate the accusation. The sound makes me wince; it echoes loudly through this large and open room.

“All that I have done is for your sake,” Balekin says. “For your sake and for the strength of the kingdom. If you would only—”

At that moment, there is a clattering noise from the hallway. A distraction from the Roach, I think—I hope. It sounds like something ornamental has fallen over, a vase or maybe a bust. Maybe it will be enough to make them leave.

Balekin’s face contorts with fury. He makes a move to go, then pauses and looks at the cut on Cardan’s cheek like he has only just noticed it is there. Like it is something completely apart from anything he has done. Like it just appeared there, on its own.

“Have that fixed,” he snaps.

And with that, he stalks out of the room.

Cardan doesn’t immediately move to obey. He stays at the window and raises his hand to the cut on his cheek, then pulls it away and looks at the blood on his fingertips. His mouth thins into a line. His eyes are empty.

Thunder crashes somewhere, miles from here. The candle on the desk flickers and dies.

He leaves, too, but I don’t dare move until the echo of his footsteps recedes from the hall outside, and I am certain neither of them are coming back.


	11. Chapter 10

The Roach is pleased by the names I gather, and says that Dain will be too. I am dismissed back to the Little Palace and, without the Ghost to shield me, take the tunnels most of the way.

My feet carry me back to my room of their own volition. Once I am safe, I collapse facedown onto my bed and sleep until the bell rings for breakfast. A note slipped into my napkin at breakfast grants me a rare night off from training. Under normal circumstances I’d protest—If I stop, will I remember how to start again? If I don’t keep swimming, will I drown?—but I am exhausted. Only spending half my nights asleep is beginning to take its toll. I drift through my classes like they are a colorless dream.

That night, after I’ve hung up my jacket and unlaced my boots, I fall asleep almost immediately. It is with great annoyance that I wake up to the clatter of pebbles bouncing off my windowpane. At first I think I’m imagining it and pull my pillow over my head, but then a larger rock hits the glass, too urgent to be ignored.

I push myself up, cursing the Ghost or the Roach or whoever has been sent to fetch me. In my nightgown, I stalk to the window and push it open, hissing, “I thought you said—”

But it is Locke who peers up at me from the grounds. He is fully dressed in his blue and red _kefta_, the wind ruffling his fox fur hair like invisible fingers. Moonlight glints off of the planes of his handsome face, making him look almost angelic. But there is nothing saintly about the grin he wears.

“Were you expecting someone else?” he asks, curious and a little amused.

I am glad it’s dark, so he can’t see the color flooding my cheeks. “No,” I say, shaking my head. “You woke me up. I was confused. What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you.”

“I gathered that.”

“I’ve come by the last two nights. I thought you might have been ignoring me.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “I’m awake now.”

“Third time really is the charm.” Locke’s grin widens. “Come, let’s have an adventure.”

I want to tell him I’ve had my fair share of adventure and need to go back to bed, but I look at his smiling face and feel a magnetic pull, somewhere in my chest. This is what normal girls do, climb out of windows with handsome, clever boys who throw rocks at their window under the moonlight. I remember the way Locke took my hand by the lake, the way he wrapped his arm around my shoulders when he helped me up to the Little Palace, and a shiver runs through me that has nothing to do with the cold.

“Let me put some clothes on first,” I tell him.

His wicked smile doesn’t falter. “If you insist.”

I close the window and rush to my wardrobe, still groggy but elated. I think he’s flirting with me. I think he has _been_ flirting with me. Nothing about this makes sense.

It might be a trick.

He is still Cardan’s friend, after all.

I hesitate as I pull on my coat. With a glance at the window, I take my Grisha steel knife from under my pillow and slip it into my pocket, just in case. If he is luring me away to some unknowable fate, at least I won’t go unprepared.

Locke is still there waiting for me when I swing open my window. His breath forms puffy clouds that vanish almost as soon as they form. He looks surprised that I am able to climb down from the window easily, that my feet barely make a sound when they touch the ground.

“What kind adventure do you have in mind?” I ask, wary.

“A surprise one.” He begins to walk across the grounds, and I follow him.

“I don’t like surprises.”

He cocks his head at me. “It’s not much of an adventure if you know what’s coming next.”

I suppose he has a point. Still, I say, “If this is a trick, you’re going to be sorry.”

Locke stops walking.

“If your friends are waiting to ambush me—”

“Oh, no.” He chuckles. “No, Jude. Nothing like that. Do you think so little of me?”

“I don’t have much reason to think otherwise,” I counter.

Locke is quiet for a moment, and then he says, “I guess you don’t. But the lake was a bridge too far. Consider this my way of trying to make up for it. For all of it.”

He sounds sincere, even if I don’t know whether I believe him. He didn’t try to drown me. Then again, he didn’t exactly stop anyone from drowning me, either.

“Where _are_ we going?” I ask.

“To the _banya_.”

Once again, I am glad for the cover of night. I’m pretty sure I’m now red to the tips of my ears. At least there’s the cold to blame.

These days, the _banya_ on the Little Palace grounds is used less for actual bathing than for socializing. Taryn and I have historically ventured out to them only when most of the other students are gone for breaks between terms, and on the rare occasions our peers saw fit to invite us. It’s usually a single-gender experience—for us, at least. I say _usually_ because it’s difficult to stop teenagers from sneaking in after hours, as we are apparently about to do.

“Did you hit your head during sparring?” I ask.

Locke holds up his gloved hands, laughing. He has an easy laugh, the kind that makes you want to laugh along with him. “Believe me, I know better than to pressure you into doing anything you don’t want to do. I value my head attached to my neck. But you’ve seemed so stressed lately. I thought you’d like this.”

Admittedly, unwinding in the steam does sound nice. Maybe I can sweat out whatever’s blocking my powers. I don’t think that’s how it works, but I’m willing to try.

“I’ll wear a towel, if you want,” he continues. “Or I can wait outside.”

“Don’t be stupid,” I say, before I think anything through. “You’ll freeze.”

He ducks his head playfully. “If you insist.”

We walk the rest of the way without speaking, Locke with his hands in his pockets, whistling. We only have to duck out of the way of the patrols once, hiding in the shadow of the birch tree grove as they pass by. A few flurries flutter down from the clouds above, and one lands on Locke’s cheek, quickly melting. He wrinkles his nose and rubs it away.

When we reach the _banya_, which is meant to be locked after hours, I am unsurprised to see Locke draw a key from his pocket. Being friends with a prince means privilege. But when he turns it in the lock, he frowns.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing,” he says. He opens the door and ushers me inside.

We undress in the _predbannik_, back to back. My heart is like a wild deer, leaping everywhere. I glance over my shoulder to see Locke pull off his shirt, and immediately look away, my face burning again. He’s good-looking. They all are, but Locke is more good-looking for not being as awful as his friends. His skin is pale and unscarred. I don’t know why the sight of his shoulder blades, the muscles moving under his skin, has me so affected. Maybe it’s the proximity to the steam.

My thoughts come in great numbers and too fast as I fold my clothes and set them beside crumpled garments that must have been forgotten here. Could he really like me? Can anything be that simple? I don’t know if I like him, but I also don’t _not_ like him. He’s not as horrible as Cardan’s other friends, or Cardan. He said he wouldn’t do anything to make me uncomfortable, but I wonder what would happen if he just kissed me.

Maybe I’d like that. Maybe I’d understand what the fuss is about.

“Are you decent?” Locke asks from across the room.

I take a clean, white towel from a shelf and quickly wrap it around myself. “Decent,” I confirm. “You?”

“Rarely,” he says, “but I’m covered.”

I roll my eyes and turn around. Locke is looking at me in a way that makes me feel like the towel might as well not be there at all. Then he says, “Oh, there it is.”

“There what is?”

“Your smile.”

I _am_ smiling, I realize, but it quickly vanishes once I notice. “Let’s just go in,” I say quickly.

“Rest assured,” he says, “you’ll smile again. I am full of terrible jokes.”

“I don’t doubt it.” And I find that, against all odds, I am actually looking forward to his company.

But when he pushes the steam room door, it becomes clear that we are not the only people in the _banya_.

Prince Cardan is already reclining on one of the benches, and he isn’t alone. He has two—I guess I should call them “companions” with him, a boy and a girl, both about his age or a little older. I am shocked to recognize the girl as the Healer who had tended to him after our training incident. The boy I don’t know. I don’t think he’s another Grisha, but if he’s _otkazat’sya_ I can’t imagine Cardan settling for anything less than a Lord’s son. He is leaning forward, his hands buried in Cardan’s black curls, while the Healer lies across Cardan’s lap.

They are all naked. Thankfully the Healer keeps me from seeing anything of Cardan that I can’t unsee, but she and the boy aren’t hiding anything. I am so surprised that I can’t help staring.

I am not surprised, however, to see what appear to be empty bottles of _kvas_. Cardan seems drunk, or at least somewhat stupified. He glances at Locke, then at me, trying to fix his eyes on my face.

“Well?” he says, utterly shameless. “Come in or close the door. You’re letting out all the steam.”

“You’re such an ass,” says Locke. He sounds angry. I know now that this is no trick, at the same time I realize that Locke was given pause at the door because it was already unlocked, and that the clothes I saw weren’t just left behind.

I should have been paying closer attention.

“What is it I’m meant to have done, exactly?” Cardan asks. “The _banya_’s a public place. I can send my friends away, but I’ve no intention of leaving.” His dark eyes narrow. “Or have you suddenly decided that three’s a crowd?”

Locke scowls, but he looks to me. I shrug. I’m not about to let Cardan scare me away. Without looking at him or his friends, I step inside, claiming a bench on the far side of the room. Locke follows my lead, first splashing some new hot water on the rocks, then coming to sit beside me, although not without a glare cast in Cardan’s direction.

For his part, Cardan just blinks at us. It’s dark in the _banya_, but I can see well enough that there are no bruises or cuts on his face. His skin is smooth and perfect and unmolested by pimples, as always. He must have seen a Healer like Balekin said, maybe the one on his lap. I wonder what he told her. Maybe when you’re a prince, you don’t need any excuse at all.

I can’t help but remember the slap of Balekin’s hand against Cardan’s cheek. Madoc has never raised a hand to us. He raises his voice sometimes, and that is all he needs to do. After you’ve seen someone kill your parents, you never quite know what else they’ll do, and you definitely don’t want to find out.

I wonder why Eldred didn’t stop Balekin from hitting his younger brother, and then I wonder if he knew. I think of the way Dain spoke of Cardan, and wonder if Eldred even cared.

That blank look Cardan wore continues to unnerve me most, because I know that look, just like I know what it feels like to be clever in the face of fear. And I know what it costs. Cardan having something in his own life to fear doesn’t excuse how awful he is, but it doesn’t give me any comfort, either. I don’t like seeing myself in him, not even a little bit.

Cardan’s eyes meet mine, and I look away. I remind myself that he doesn’t know what I saw, and never will.

“Just ignore him,” says Locke, settling in next to me and closing his eyes. Sweat already beads on his skin, and mine. The air is thick with steam. I am hot in my towel, but there’s no way I’m going to remove it. In fact, I pull it up a little higher and redo the tuck, trying to keep it from coming loose around my chest.

Ignoring Cardan is easier said than done. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him lean up to murmur something to the boy massaging his scalp. The boy nods, then stands and leaves the room. I cast my eyes to the ceiling as he walks away, although it’s impossible not to notice how attractive he is, not as tall as Cardan, but muscular, with auburn hair curling in the steam. The Healer is beautiful too, lean like Nicasia with small breasts that I can’t help but envy. Cardan has a hand on her shoulder, but he seems a little distracted.

The boy returns holding a towel, which he passes to Cardan. Cardan leans down to say something to the Healer, who sighs, but sits up. She turns over and presses a kiss to Cardan’s cheek before leaving with the boy. Lackadaisically, Cardan drapes the towel over his lap to cover himself.

“Seems to be the fashion,” he says, nodding at us.

“Keep ignoring him,” Locke mutters, stretching out his legs. “He hates that.”

“_I_ hate that?” Cardan asks. “Interesting.”

“Why don’t you go cool off?”

“And leave you unchaperoned?”

“We’re fine here,” I snap.

“I doubt you have any idea what you are,” Cardan says, but he pushes off the bench anyway. “If I walk in on you kissing I’m going to be _very_ put out.”

“You realize that’s basically a dare, right?” Locke calls after him, but Cardan just makes a dismissive gesture and walks off outside to the cold pools, letting the towel drop to the floor as he goes. I pretend not to notice. Any sympathy he earned from last night has vanished entirely, and if he is mourning his father’s death, this is an unusual way of showing it.

When he is gone, Locke sighs. “I didn’t know he’d be here.”

I look after Cardan, who is long gone. “How can you be friends with someone like that?”

“Someone like what?” Locke asks, with a slightly lopsided smile. “Handsome? Rich? Powerful?”

“Awful.”

“Oh, right.” Locke turns his head, too, to look where I am looking. He shrugs. “I like to be entertained. Cardan provides entertainment. And I’d rather be on his side than not.”

“I’m surprised you’re here with me, then.”

Even in the dim light of the _banya_, I can see that his teeth are pearly white. “Part of the entertainment Cardan offers is in getting under his skin. You do that.”

“_I_ do it?”

“Like no one else I’ve ever seen.”

I frown. “So you threw rocks at my window tonight and brought me here just to get under his skin.”

He chuckles. “No. I threw rocks at your window tonight and brought you here because I like you.”

I have been coming to realize this, but I am shocked to hear it all the same. “You do?”

“Yes. And you spitting water in Cardan’s face that day only cemented it.”

Being friends with Cardan sounds complicated. Locke shifts closer to me. The air is heavy with promise, and with steam. I can see locks of hair sticking to his forehead, his neck. “I like you. I want to know you better. Do you think we should kiss to annoy him?”

I freeze.

Locke said he likes me. I want that, I do. Being liked is a wonderful thing. But I don’t know when liking tips into _liking_, if he likes me enough to kiss me—or if he likes me just enough to not _mind_ kissing me, and wants to because Cardan said we shouldn’t.

Maybe it’s enough just to be kissed. I’m seventeen and no one’s bothered yet.

Except before I can recover, Locke notices.

“Or,” he says, barely missing a beat.

I am ashamed at my own shyness, but there doesn’t seem to be any coming back from that. “Or?”

“Maybe something else. Something better.”

* * *

I don’t see Cardan when he returns from his dip in the pools. Locke’s hands are on my shoulders, his thumbs digging into the knots just below my neck. At some point, I closed my eyes. “You _are_ tense,” Locke says, circling his thumbs. He finds a knot on my left side, and I groan.

“I take it back,” says Cardan, who sounds disgusted. “You should definitely kiss instead.”

I start to open my eyes, but Locke nudges me, and I close them again. “I am trying to get Jude to relax.”

Cardan snorts. “And you’re the perfect person for the job. I’m sure you’ve spent a lot of time learning which of her buttons to push to elicit those sounds.”

The innuendo makes me frown. It’s not like I don’t know that Locke’s been with other girls. Nicasia, for one, during last spring and summer—they were really obvious about it. I would expect him to know a thing or two more than I do. And Cardan really doesn’t have any room to talk.

“You have a—ah—dirty mind,” I tell him, wincing when Locke’s fingers locate another knot and press into it. “This _is_ relaxing.”

“Yes, yes, you sound very relaxed,” says Cardan, whose voice is a little strained. “What exactly is your plan? Annoy me into going away?”

“Something like that.”

“It’s about stamina,” Locke adds. “How much of this can you endure?”

Cardan snorts. “Oh, I know I can outlast you.”

Locke’s hands move down, digging hard into my back, and I have to bite my lip to keep from groaning again. “We’ll see,” he says.

I feel strangely lightheaded. Maybe the steam is getting to me. Probably time to switch to cold air. “I’m going to go outside for a minute,” I say to Locke, and I sit up, rolling my shoulders.

All of my muscles feel a little looser, so why am I still so wound up?

The night air outside is cold, well below freezing, but it’s a welcome change from the steam room. I gasp as I slide into one of the pools, my skin prickling. For an uncomfortable moment I am reminded of wading into the lake, but I wait it out. The cold and heat both will be a boon to my body, all the aches I’ve accumulated from the nights of training with the Court of Shadows on top of normal wear and tear. A couple of minutes to cool off, and then I’ll go back inside to Locke.

I think this would be more fun if Cardan weren’t here, but I’m weirdly thankful for the buffer. I don’t know what would happen if he _weren’t_ here. I think about Locke leaning in to kiss me, his face perilously close to mine, and curse myself for showing discomfort. It would probably have felt good to kiss him, a boy who is handsome and nice to me and who knows how to kiss people. I could do worse. Given that I know everyone close to my age at the Little Palace a little too well, I can’t really do better.

“What do you think you’re doing, exactly?”

There is a splash, and I open my eyes to see that Cardan has joined me outside—thankfully, he has chosen a different pool to claim as his own. I paddle to press myself up against the side of my pool so he can’t see anything, which just makes him roll his eyes.

“I’m using the _banya_ as intended,” I say, coolly.

“I meant with Locke.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“You made it my business when you interrupted me.”

“As you said, the _banya_ is a public place.”

Cardan’s eyes narrow. He doesn’t like having his words thrown back in his face. “Was this your first outing together? A bold choice. I wouldn’t expect that of you. Now, your sister…”

“Don’t say a word about Taryn,” I snap.

He shrugs. “Suit yourself. I thought you’d like to know.”

Know _what_? What could Cardan possibly know about Taryn that I don’t? I recall the dreamy look she wore when she spoke of marrying a Grisha, and wonder if she’s already found one. Maybe she’s been sneaking out, too. Maybe—

It’s probably nothing. Cardan’s probably bluffing, because he’s a jerk who’s trying to provoke me. I sink further into the water. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”

He regards me steadily. “No,” he says, at last. “Maybe I don’t.”

I don’t like the sound of that at all.

“Jude,” says Locke, walking over to us. He still has the towel wrapped around his waist, and he keeps it on when he sits at the edge of my pool and dips his feet in. He shivers visibly, which I find a little endearing. “I thought he might come bother you.”

Cardan flicks some water. “I said I was leaving. I didn’t say where I might wander.”

Locke ignores him. He’s much better at that than I am. “This isn’t how I thought the evening would go,” he admits to me. “I had other, grander plans, but as you can see…”

“It’s a good thing I didn’t have any expectations, then.” I rub my arms against the bitter cold. I’ll want to go back inside to the steam room soon. “I would never have come here on my own. I’m glad I went.”

“I’m glad you came.” He smiles. I think he means it. “What do you say we get out of here and warm up with some tea?”

“Tea would be nice.”

“I’ll go back to the main hall and charm the kitchen staff. Take as much time as you need. Meet me there when you’re ready.”

I’m colder than cold, but his smile is so bright that I almost feel warm under its glow. “Just a few minutes.”

“Take your time.” Then he leans forward and takes one of my hands. In a low voice, so Cardan can’t hear, he adds, “Maybe we can try that kiss again.”

“I—” I blink, then recover. “I told you I don’t like surprises.”

He grins. “Then consider this forewarning.” Then he straightens up and says to Cardan, “Come on. Leave her alone.”

“Are you going to offer me tea, too?” Cardan asks. “I hear that’s a surefire way to seal the deal.”

Locke walks to Cardan’s pool and kicks some of the cold water in his direction.

Cardan swears, then pushes water right back at Locke. “Fine,” he says. “But let it be known I am only going along with this because you almost messed up my hair.”

“Your hair was messed up before I got here,” Locke returns. “You look like you’ve been rolling around with the stablehands.”

Cardan grins, then begins to climb out of the pool. “It’s been said that’s my best look.”

I am unnerved to see Cardan having any semblance of fun that isn’t at someone’s expense. As he emerges from the water, I notice some marks on his back, but I don’t look long enough to make out what they are. Maybe scratches his friends left earlier. I feel myself blushing again and keep my eyes averted until he and Locke are gone.

Since I’m now chilled to the bone, I spend a little more time in the steam before going, then decide it’s time when I catch myself falling asleep—which would be really bad. I wash up and dress, thinking of the tea waiting for me, and whether Locke might try to kiss me again. Whether I’ll let him.

I am lacing up my boots when I notice a gleam of gold on a shelf nearby. I walk over and pick it up, holding it to the light.

It’s a royal signet ring. Cardan must have taken it off and left it behind on accident. No doubt he’ll notice it missing at some point and come back for it.

I chew on my lower lip. I should leave it where I found it. But what I could do with this ring… I wonder if I could mimic Dain’s writing enough, or Cardan’s. It’s heavy in my palm, the metal strangely cool.

_Just for a moment_, I tell myself, and slip it on my finger. It’s too big, even for my middle finger, but I like the weight of it. I hold my whole hand up to the light now, admiring the shadow the ring casts, the shape of it on my finger.

“What do you think you’re doing?” asks a voice from the doorway.

I look up. Cardan is there, his hair still wet, scowling at me from the doorway.

“I was just keeping it warm for you, _moi tsarevich_,” I say. The words are a poor excuse. My tongue is heavy with them, leaden in my mouth.

Cardan crosses to me and snatches the ring from my hand. “I should have you punished for this,” he says haughtily, tossing the ring up and catching it. “That’s within my power, you know.”

I stiffen. “Whatever harm you rain down on me, I will return tenfold.”

He takes a step closer to me, an odd expression on his face. His hair is curlier from all the steam. “And what exactly is it you plan on doing?” he asks.

_Crushing the air from your lungs_, I want to say. The truth is I have no plan, no way to make good on my grandiose proclamations. “Something you won’t like,” I say softly. It’s true enough.

Cardan glares at me for a moment. He is so tall. His nearness makes me want to shove him, or spit on him again. Somehow, he is the one who makes it hard for me to breathe, even though he’s an Etherealnik. I suppose he could be snatching the breath from _my_ lungs. I angle my face up proudly, not wanting to show that I am affected. Not wanting to show that he does anything to me at all.

He leans closer to—what? Sneer at me? Whisper more poison in my ear? Whatever it is, I never find out.

Because at that very moment, the wail of an air raid siren tears through the air.

**Author's Note:**

> Next update should be up **Thursday, December 5thth**! I know this week's was a little late — sorry about that. I'll always update at least one of my social feeds when I'm running behind.
> 
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